Project 1. Body of work ( continuation).

Below is the next stage of my work studio, which is about starting the project on canvas. I bought 3 canvases from Gaestacher, which are more or less of professional quality. From the beginning, I knew the outcome would be very different from what I expected since all my previous drawings were done on paper. The ink on the canvas behaves differently, so I was prepared that it was just a trial and further learning about the medium. So, the developments below are all about testing inks and colours on the canvas.

I can name this entire work as a “wanted failure” because I saw how I should not use inks: they behaved horribly, spreading and laying unevenly, and the canvas was absorbing the inks like sand absorbing water in the desert. That made me pour more inks, building up multiple layers, which led to ink losing its charm – that delicate, elegant, semi-transparent look. The problem was with the canvas. My primary and fundamental mistake was that I believed in advertising that the canvas had 3 layers of gesso and was ready for work. When I applied the first greens, I understood that this particular work would NOT be successful. The surface was rough, which is a disaster for inks. That essential finding allowed me to achieve tremendous progress in my technical skills.

However, I was very engaged in exploring ink’s behaviour on a wrong, unprepared, rough surface, testing colours, and practising visual effects and lines.

When I removed the sticky tape under the stems on the left-side photo, an interesting effect remained: the ink leaked through it. Thus, I learned how to create a visual effect using the spontaneous behaviour of inks under the sticky tape. I also tried working with soft white pastels on top of the inks to check what visual effect I could achieve.

On the right-side photo, I used inks on top of soft pastels in the area under the leaves. Since the green mass became messy because of my mistake of using inks on unprepared canvas, I devised to mask it with flowers. Working on top of the inks with white, yellow, and gold acrylic was interesting for creating flowers. Acrylics get intensely absorbed, so I repeatedly took several days to work to make them noticeable. In the end, I managed to create a complex look, and some areas ( above from the middle part horizontally) did not look bad at all, which is not bad; however, in general, the painting was an absolute disaster. I didn’t like the shape of the left stem – it was too thick and stiff. The bottom part is interesting, as it is on the left photo, but it looks unfinished and strange.