Drip
Besides crosshatching, the most obvious and characteristic aspect of my mark-making is the drip.
The drip comes in two forms—splattered and brushed—but it’s always an extremely watered-down version of acrylics.
In these beginning phases of my portrait of my cousin Chris, the drip is in its brushed form in the upper right hand corner of the painting, in the pooling that’s happening in the light blue blocks.
To get this effect, I lay my panel or canvas on the floor and apply watered-down acrylics with brushes, instead of by pouring or splattering the paint.
In this thinned state, the acrylics morph and separate as the water settles and evaporates.
This a large part of my “make a mess and then clean it up” approach to making art.
I find it easier to edit than to create.
I prefer responding to what’s already on the panel than putting down that first blush of color.
Dripping helps me to get something going on the panel or canvas: it gives me something to edit.
Gwenn Seemel
Chris
2009
acrylic on panel
10 x 10 inches
(detail below)
RELATED ARTICLES:
- Helping myself
- My disposable thumb
- The material makes the painting.
CATEGORIES: - Process images - Practice -
(5) Comments / Commentaires: Drip
P.S.: At the same time, I really like the painting of “Guy Person” from your Mutually Beneficial series:
http://www.gwennseemel.com/index.php/paintings/of/2006MBbeneficial/
... I think you captured his personality perfectly.
And I really like the blues you chose. No drips, though ... besides the subject himself! Ha!
We need three points of contact to relate and create. The drip, in this case, is a second point with the first being Gwenn. The third point is the edit. Same with writing. An outline can be the second point and the editing and/or elaborating the third.
Why three?
Because three is what it takes to create perspective. Three is the magic number. Two is a dilemma. Three is choice.
Claire...
Regarding “I find it easier to edit than to create.” ... Amen!!
Working on the first writing stages of my dissertation, this sentence speaks to me! The hardest step is the first one, at least in my experience, and then editing is an exercise in elaboration (on a computer screen, as, I imagine, on a canvas).
As the French would say, it’s a question of the “fond” (content) versus the “forme” (quality)—the essence of the ideas versus the style in which they are presented. To me it has always been a greater challenge to come up with something brilliant to say than it is to embroider it in a paragraph framed with nice transitions. The genius I see in your paintings is their essence, the way you depict your subjects or capture their personality, which is constant in your work even though the style has evolved over the years (varying with brush sizes and color schemes, as seen in the minute stokes in the portraits of your grandparents, Eugénie and Patern Kervinio, in 2001 as compared to the painting of your cousin, above, for example). And then the “forme” of your paintings, the drips you speak of here and the backgrounds, adds to the appeal of the portraits. It’s all genius, really… I guess my point is that I really like your work!
Perhaps editing is easier because it comes second; one can’t edit what doesn’t yet exist… Then again, I have a friend who is a copy editor who might very well disagree with everything I just said. But I only intend to comment on the process of creating and editing one’s own work, in this case.
I wonder if the majority of people find it easier to edit than to create. Surely there must be two sides to the creative coin…
And one last note: this is a beautiful portrait! Very lively and filled with movement!
--- -- - --- - ---- - - --- ----- -- -