I woke up Saturday morning from one of those vivid dreams where I was painting. It was 2AM, so I went back to bed and was up and in the studio by 6:15. I had this idea of using the high solid gel medium from Golden in combination with my cardboard 2.5" letter stencils using the alphabet repeatedly to create a relief on the canvas. From there I glazed dark grey then scumbled it back into the white range and repeated the process again until the areas looked just right. The process just about obliterated the flourish background, which I decided was the right move anyway. It forced the bridge into the foreground and created a sky unlike any I've painted before. I chose the alphabet due to repetition and the fact I wanted to only play subconsciously with the physical existence of language without the meanings of words being imposed onto the subject matter. I also felt it reminded me of learning to write in school. We had the old yellowed pull down alphabet followed by the teacher's writings on the chalk board.
I proceeded to use a same technique on the other piece as well. Both works have been asking for me to do something different while keeping a tight relationship to previous bridge and building works. Yet both have a more traditional landscape feel to them with the elemental relationship between sky, land and water. The heavy use of motif here felt out of place, yet the the lack of collage was like sending them out in the world in their undies. This was the perfect solution and both works are now singing and are pretty much in the final stages. They were just needing something to make them pop.
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