Saturday, May 24, 2008

To Cover or Not to Cover....

moon1

Sometimes I start out rearing to go with a great idea for a background in mind and it all comes together, so much so that I fall in love with the background, and then I have a hard time covering it up. Such is the case with this piece I created the background on a 6x6 chunky canvas by first adhering pages from a book using fluid matte medium on the front and the sides of the canvas. I then gave it a light coat of Golden's titanium buff fluid acrylic mixed with a bit of transparent glaze. After that I added other colors mixed with glaze, rings of color from gesso and acrylics and then splattered it with watered down acrylic . The sides I painted black and white striped and moonsd2then accented the edges with a water soluble oil pastel stick.

I loved the depth it has and how you can see a hint of the text from the book pages, but now what? I couldn't decide what to put on the front and there it sat for several weeks staring at me I hated the thought of covering the background up and nothing seemed worthy silly as that sounds! Until I finally decided to just go for it and cut a moon shape out of a book page and painted it with acrylics and then adhered it with gel medium. I'm loving it now and will probably do a matching sun to go with it.

I've come to realize my favorite part of creating a piece is creating the background yet with that comes the hard part of taking that next step to put something on the background. I wonder if other people have a problem with this as well, do you?

5 comments:

  1. Aileen, you just waited until you came up with the perfect image for this background...and then you chose very wisely. And, similarly to what you did, I often construct art in what I think of as component parts, leaving a background piece or a focal piece for a long time until it tells me what to do next.

    Joanne

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  2. I think this is just fabulous, Aileen - the moon image is so perfect for your lovely background.
    I can quite understand your reluctance to put things on top of your backgrounds when they look as good as this!! :-)

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  3. This is a very cool piece. I do love the depth of the canvas. Makes for a great border. I love to play with backgrounds. I hold them until I find the perfect image.

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  4. Aileen, It is great. The background and the foreground are perfect.

    Tammy

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  5. Aileen,
    I have the same problem with a few canvas backgrounds. One I had for two years and then while I was staring at it, I saw a sparrow pop out of part of the background. Less than an hour later, I had him drawn in black ink and some lettering in the lower corner and the piece was done. Now, if only my other two and a half year old canvas would decide what it wants to be. I have nephews younger than this!

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