Work in progress

“Writing about art is only useful when it leads to the experience of art.” – Darby Bannard

| ssemchuk

February 8, 2016

Something a little different today. On December 31, my kids and I visited the Art Gallery of Alberta. One of the exhibitions was of the work of Chris Cran – my current favourite Alberta artist. After seeing some of his work with paintings of half-toned images, I thought I’d play a little. This is more of an experiment to see how the technique would work in preparation to play with these ideas more in future pieces.

Pink Stripes WIPA, Feb 7, 2016, Acrylic on Canvas, 6" X 6"
Pink Stripes WIPA, Feb 7, 2016, Acrylic on Canvas, 6″ X 6″

I started by painting the surface of a 6″ X 6″ canvas with flourescent pink acrylic paint and the edges with black gesso. Then I taped stripes onto the surface and covered it with a layer of acrylic gloss medium.

Pink Stripes WIPB, Feb 7, 2016, Acrylic & Oil on Canvas, 6" X 6"
Pink Stripes WIPB, Feb 7, 2016, Acrylic & Oil on Canvas, 6″ X 6″

I proceeded to paint a half-toned image over the tape in oil paint. While the paint was still wet, I removed the tape.

Pink Stripes, Feb 7, 2016, Acrylic & Oil on Canvas, 6" X 6"
Pink Stripes, Feb 7, 2016, Acrylic & Oil on Canvas, 6″ X 6″

One of the questions that this experiment poses is, how much of an image do we have to have available to us in order to understand what we’re seeing? There is a lot of room for improvement with this. One of the biggest problems here is that my scale is all wrong. But it’s the first one. I will continue to play with this idea for a bit and see what I can come up with.

“An amateur is someone who…”

| ssemchuk

January 25, 2016

“An amateur is someone who supports himself with outside jobs, which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.”
– Ben Shahn
Still Life Red WIP
Still Life Red WIP, Jan 23, 2016, Oil on Canvas, 48” X 36″

“Cultures are defensive constructions against chaos… “

| ssemchuk

January 4, 2016

“Cultures are defensive constructions against chaos, designed to reduce the impact of randomness on experience. They are adaptive responses, just as feathers are for birds and fur is for mammals. Cultures prescribe norms, evolve goals, build beliefs that help us tackle the challenges of existence. In so doing they must rule out many alternative goals and beliefs, and thereby limit possibilities; but this channeling of attention to a limited set of goals and means is what allows effortless action with self-created boundaries.

It is in this respect that games provide a compelling analogy to cultures. Both consist of more or less arbitrary goals and rules that allow people to become involved in a process and act with a minimum of doubts and distractions. The difference is mainly one of scale. Cultures are all-embracing: they specify how a person should be born, how she should grow up, marry, have children, and die. Games fill out the interludes of the cultural script. They enhance action and  concentration during “free time,” when cultural instructions offer little guidance, and a person’s attention threatens to wander into the uncharted realms of chaos.”

– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience 

I’ve just started this large canvas and am looking forward to seeing how it evolves. The photo has a lot of reflection on the lower left. Hopefully next time I’ll find a better angle to photograph it from.
Still Life Red WIP
Still Life Red WIP, Jan 3, 2016, Oil on Canvas, 48″ X 36″

“authorship is a dubious concept” – Victor Pelevin

| ssemchuk

“I had never understood my own poetry particularly well, and had long suspected that authorship is a dubious concept, and all that is required from a person who takes a pen in hand is to line up the various keyholes scattered about his soul so that a ray of sunlight can shine through on to the paper set out in front of him.” 

from Buddha’s Little Finger, by Victor Pelevin

Bellis III WIP
Bellis III WIP

I worked a little more on this painting that I have been very dissatisfied with. It’s still not finished, but I’m a little happier with the direction it’s going in. I’ve included a before as well to see the difference. She still needs work….

Bellis III WIP
Bellis III WIP, Jan 25, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 28″ X 28″

“Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

| ssemchuk

October 4, 2015

From Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic:

“Creativity is sacred, and it is not sacred.
What we make matters enormously, and it doesn’t matter at all.
We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits.
We are terrified, and we are brave.
Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege.
Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us.”
2015 10 03 Peppermint Bottle WIP
I’m still working on this – and it needs a lot of help yet. I’m painting on primed canvas taped to masonite at the moment. I’ll use it to cover a hand-bound book when it’s finished. Based on this image from Cezanne.