Anatomy of a painting- Part 1

This week I'm putting the finishing touches on another painting from the Garden Series. I've photographed the work during development to give an idea of how I build things up.

This work is on cradled panel (10 x 24 in.). I seal the masonite with acrylic gesso and then add a layer of Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish to decrease the absorbency of the gesso for the application of papers that I use as a base.

The next step is to apply the acrylic skin transfer to the board using matt medium. This is a black and white image transfer from a photo I took in the gardens. Once the acrylic skin was applied to the board, I then over painted the bar wrapper. I wanted to keep just enough information to recognize it as a candybar wrapper.

Following this, a paper with bits of bark and leaves was applied to create basic texture and colour to build on. I'm sorry I don't have the proper name for the paper. I obviously need to create an archive of all my papers with a sample and name.

I also began to physically build up the ground and leaves under the wrapper by simplifying the information in the image transfer and adding new information of my own. As you will see later this was all for naught because I changed the scale and orientation of the wrapper .










Additional papers were added to strengthen the composition. The black lace paper so obvious in this shot created problems because it created too much contrast with the other choices. This necessitated much layering to cover it up. So much for great ideas.













Things are looking up here. I'm managing to cover up all the black and the various textured papers are integrating well to produce that decaying look I was after.