Bits and pieces

Here are some failed attempts during the struggle this month.  However, certain aspects of these may be used later...

This is a tattooed portrait on rawhide,
it also can be viewed from both sides

Although this is a NOPE. 

NOPE, total fail. embarrassing 

Some other work from this month

These are still spit-shadied pieces cut out and put on a board that is papered with targets I shot at the shooting range with a Glock 30, 45 cal.  I also then painted on top of the target.

'Heads Will Roll'

'triggerwarning'

Real women have learning curves

This month brought about many realizations, and much struggle.  Normally when I approach a painting I will map it out in my sketchbook in ideas, quotes, scribbles, sketches etc to form the overall theme. This month I started that way again, but have talked my way out of about 10-15 ideas.

During this time researching contemporary expressionists like:

DANA SCHUTZ

NICOLE EISENMAN

I've always been drawn to painterly painters, their concentration on form and style as well as content appeals to how I want to work.  My work so far has been doing this somewhat but not in a painterly way as I have been constructing pieces together using collage and strange material like casing and tattooed rawhide. 

I appreciate the experimentation and it has yielded some interesting result but I feel like I need to focus on compositions and consider formal aspects in an overall piece.  

The spit-shade technique, which I still want to use, will only work on hot press watercolor paper, there is no doing this on the unconventional material I have been using, and this has yielded a lot of failures in the attempts.

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So, although I have made some progress even with collaging spit-shaded paintings on paper onto board that I then painted on, I would like to also continue doing paintings in all one media in the coming months.

I do still like the 'casing-paper' and have been making bigger portions, which is a long, grueling, smelly process.  Although spit-shading doesn't work, I do like the effects of regular acrylic paint and brush-lined ink. 

I've also been researching Jim Nutt. His work on plexiglass is echoed here in my paintings on casing. If I lay the casing thin enough, without making it too thin, as it would be impossible to tear off of aluminum foil, the painting can be seen from both sides. The reverse side interesting because the pattern in the casing is prominent.

I'd also like to continue doing these casing paintings....with more compositional focus than just a pig head as in the one pictured.

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The realizations and struggle this month had to happen.  Tattoo definitely changed the way I approached art making and I've got to take the good from it and leave what is keeping me from making art that works. And I'm still working, but overall there is progress...on to the next one!