Blackpaint 87

 How do you know when a painting is finished?

One way is to check that there are no dead areas.  In the picture below, the dark green base can’t have anything more put in it – it would get crowded and fussy and anyway, it’s already performing the function of giving the structure some clear definition.  The ochre patch top left isn’t doing much, but again, I don’t want it to get too crowded.  I think the place to go is top right into the cloudy grey stuff.  That’s what I’m going to do anyway – see how it turns out.  The picture below is a development of the one I was doing yesterday; see Blackpaint 86 for earlier version.  And see tomorrow (Blackpaint 88) for how it turns out!

I’ve been using postcards for mark making, to scoop up the paint and trowel it around like a knife.  A couple of the cards have come out quite well in this process, so I’ve photographed them and will try paintings based on them (though of course, my paintings tend to go where they “want” to, rather than turning out the same as some pre-determined plan).  Here they are, anyway:

Blackpaint

15/03/10

Tags: Abstract painting, My Paintings