Work Continues for the Artist-Slash-Swashbuckler

 This week has been filled with sampling and re-visioning, which from the outside may look a bit tame, but inside it feels very much like a swashbuckling Errol Flynn swordfight.

Happily I am casting myself as Errol Flynn aka Captain Blood in this fantasy!!

The three pieces now have a name, "The Fluttering Pages of My Life”.

After a lot of samples and fancy footwork and sword parrying, I chose the idea of painting directional “swooshes” across the surface to suggest movement and motion.

I’m also adding subtle bits of invented text to help convey the idea that these are “pages”. Don’t ask how many other ideas I ruled out before selecting this one. 

Using more strongly contrasting values in this sample also made me realize that I want to amp up the contrasts on these pieces. I need to complete these revisions before I add the swooshes, so I spent all day yesterday painting elements that I can collage to the current works.

Here’s another idea still to be tested out. I’m bending a set of aluminum hangers for both the top and bottom of each hanging in the hopes of creating  a gently undulating surface, as in “rippling in the breeze.”  Will I like them rippling when I get to my studio again on Tuesday and see what it looks like? Or will I decide to keep the pieces hanging flat?

Hey, there’s always the option of  a giant fan in the room blowing the heck out of the work -- and my neighbor the sculptor is more than willing to teach me how to mechanize the piece with small motors so it undulates!