8th of August 2022
Noting down the progression of my painting/collage:
> Paint when you are certain, and when you aren't - write. When you have written all you can, and you are still undecided as to what you should do, try tidying up, embroidery, or Bloons Tower Defence 5. Failing that try some sketchbooking or collaging to generate new possible ideas to implement onto your painting.
> Today I have finally finished the area around the pink moth. Atleast to me it is finished; my youngest sister absolutely detests the light yellow field, and thinks I should paint it in light green instead. I, on the other hand, strongly disagree. Light green would make the white, green and red combination look too christmassy in my eyes. I also think it would throw the whole collaging composition off balance. My youngest sister also suggested I turn the red circles on the yellow into more realistic looking poppies, as opposed to just leaving the implication there by placing the circles on the yellow field. Although I have considered her advice, I have decided I would much rather leave them in the more ambiguous circle shape. This is in part me taking inspiration from Kandinsky, Joan Miro and Alexander Calder too, with all of their abstract dotty paintings and sculptures. Remaining in this ambiguous form also allows the red balls to transition between poppies, cranberries, clown noses and red balls in the eyes of different viewers. I know there may be other interpretations I haven't thought of yet, but that is also something I want to encourage, as it part of what makes painting so exciting for me.
In response to this I have suggested to Matylda that she amends a photo of my collage in accordance with her wishes using the Krita Drawing Software and the graphic tablet - it would be interesting to see the results. Moreover, having had all of my sister's helpful input, I must make sure to thank her on the back of the paint surface.
> There is one part of my the garden painting that I decided was beyond repair, that of the bee moth head. Interestingly, this was one aspect of the painting that my youngest sister agreed with me on. Having replaced the bee moth with a brown, red and white butterfly, it does look substantially better. The laid back attitude of the lady seems to suit the open wings of the butterfly more. There was one problem however, in that this new butterfly was printed out onto card , and so is raised around 0.5 or 1 mm compared to the rest of the painting.
One method I have thought of to resolve this is to make a point of these levels, emphasizing them by adding a few more leaf-shapes of card to be painted black. As a consequence of this, there would also be a more interesting surface to paint white spots onto, so as to continue the pattern of the butterfly into the rest of the eye.
> Speaking of which, this PVA sheet solution actually originated from my time collaging and painting with one my family's friends daughter's. I had squirted a bit of the PVA for her to use for her work onto a plastic work. She did not use all the PVA, and after what was left had dried, I peeled it off to discover a transparent sheet of PVA. Crucially, when I was playing around with this on my moth-eye-mountboard composition, the PVA sheet focused the light into some interesting patterns. Given this I reasoned this type of material could be exactly what is needed to balance out the transparent tracing paper used on the left side of the composition. With this in mind, I began to paint the plastic lid with PVA once again, additionally I paint the surface of a non-stick MDF board with various large rectangles of PVA.
After I peeled the sheet of the lid, I found that it had taken a cast of the recycling symbols on the packaging. From then on I started imagining future projects I could use with this technique. Here are the ideas I have accumilated thus far:
> Wire paintings soldered onto metal - cast in PVA and hung in the sunlight. I'd also like to see if a cast of the PVA would pick up any acrylic, glass and tile paint, gouache, liquin, oil paint, and glitter. There are some questions I haven't fully figured out yet though regarding this technique, namely what would I paint and why would I paint it using this medium specifically?
> Could I make a chessboard using this technique? How would a chessboard being made with this material alter the perception of the chess board?
> Casting various found packaging surfaces
> Could I make a book from PVA sheets? What would be the significance if writing on PVA sheets? I feel like the formation of such a project would be very much influenced by my reading of the Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus (Marcus 2013), in that this type of writing could easily have been a part of the alternate universe that Marcus created- as an attempt to make language readable once more without inducing illness.
Of all the PVA sheets I cast the one I ended up using was an A5 size originally, but I cut it down to around 7cm x 15cm. I stuck it on top of the ladybugs with yet more PVA. Unfortunately, this meant the light patterns were lost due to the PVA sheet being so close to the mountboard, in its place though is the pattern created by sticking the PVA down. This pattern will also lead to the background for the ladybugs being much lighter, making both their silhouette stand out much more clearly. Furthermore, I predict it will make the ladybugs look like they are pressing down on the PVA sheet. After this is done, I must choose whether or not I will paint over the black and red drawn ladybug on the right hand side with another patch of blue sky. As of now, that ladybug looks really out of place.
The last things I have been deliberating over is the background to the lava man and rose. Presently half of it is in black and white, and the other half is in the cream and black colours captured by my phone camera. Initially, I had thought I wanted to make this whole thing black and white; my youngest sister to my surprise said that she liked it the way it was, since she saw the pink as representing the flower. I am inclined to agree with her on this point, and not draw the whole thing as black and white. Instead I am thinking of paitning the pink with pink and peach acrylic, or maybe even just adding some lighter pink in. Red ink might be too bloody-looking.
Finally, I have come to the conclusion that I do not want to add a branch next to the cherry. The reason being it would make for too many branches now that the pink moth's antennae are branches, I don't want to break this new-found harmony of shapes.
Bibliography
Marcus, Ben. The Flame Alphabet. 1. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. 1 vols. Granta Books, 2013.
Appendix:
Calder, Alexander. Mobile. Alexander Calder Mobile C.1932. TATE, 1932. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/calder-mobile-l01686.
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