Disaster or Blessing? Problems With Gesso.

Cracks.

I went into my studio to find everything had gone wrong. The gesso that I had poured on this canvas cracked, and my first thought was “oh crap!”

Cracks.

I thought about what had gone wrong. I’ve used this technique before but only on board, and it worked well on board. Maybe the canvas shrunk and caused the cracks?

Covering

I decided to continue working on it. I painted the gesso with acrylic, and I worked the paint down into the cracks. That didn’t fix it, which was not really a surprise.

Chipping away

After the paint had dried I chipped away all the loose gesso, but I left some areas that were well attached but still had cracks.

Covering.

After I chipped away all the problem areas I painted another coat of acrylic paint over the gesso. What at first seemed like a complete mess might actually be working out fine. I’ve decided I like the broken surface that I now have, and that it works better as a translation of one of my Long Series paintings.

Inspiration. Inspired by a Long Series.

24x24 inch canvas.

I’ve started painting with oils again. I love all types of paint but nothing smells as beautiful as oil paint. I bought a 24×24 inch canvas with the intention of translating some of my Long Series of 12×12 inch paintings into a larger format.

Long Series.

There are many of my Long Series paintings that I want to use as inspiration for larger paintings.

Long Series.

I’m not interested in an exact copy of the paintings, but rather I want to use them as starting points for new work.

Stencil.

I started by cutting a piece of brown paper to use as a stencil.

Gesso.

I poured gesso into the opening of the stencil.

Circle.

I poured and let the gesso flow until the stencil was covered. When I removed the stencil I had this circular puddle of gesso.

Cutting into the gesso.

I placed a wooden form in the centre of the puddle and let it sit for the day. Yes that is a wooden cheese box, and the cheese was fantastic.

Let dry.

When I removed the cheese box there was a circle cut in the middle of the gesso. I let the gesso dry overnight, and the next day I found I had a problem that I’ll talk about in a later post..

Flag.

The painting Flag is in many ways a crossover painting. It is the bridge from one group of straight painterly paintings to my more recent constructions. It utilizes the poured gesso technique of Push, but because of the rectangular shape the technique didn’t seem to have the same impact as it did in the square format. The square seemed so comfortably focused, whereas the rectangle seemed less self-contained.

I have been collecting various materials and objects that I find interesting. One such item was a roll of packing material made of cardboard that had thousands of uniform cuts of about two inches long in it. The cardboard was very soft and had an almost woven quality to it. I soaked the cardboard in gesso and attached it to the plywood support. The result looked heavy and unbalanced and I felt I had to add something to balance the composition. I had two small panels I had started then discarded, and I nailed them to the other side of the plywood to complete the composition.

I decided to keep the painting fairly simple by placing an under coating of yellow acrylic over which I applied a top coat of ultramarine blue. I scraped away some of the blue so the under painting would show through on the raised areas of poured gesso. The cardboard I painted with an under coat of acrylic black and over that I placed layers of cadmium red oil paint.

The title suggested itself fairly obviously as I worked. I like the dual nature of the title, it could represent a national flag, or it could also be an object flagged for attention. While not necessarily a successful painting I still view it as an important step in the development of my work.