I love the Third Style of painting from Pompeii. It struck me as soon as I saw it, face-to-face. Since that time, I've been attracted to small pictures centered within a wide expanse of color. In my senior show at Centre, I had a few panels drifting on top of a darkly-painted background. Now, I've been drawn to squares, especially these great 12" x 12" pieces of gessoed masonite.
In addition, I've gathered a number of photos I've taken that I think are simple and bold enough to stand on their own against the stark white.
I love how quickly these paintings come together. Here is how I do it:
I traced around a picture and then put painter's tape on the outside edges to keep them crisp.
Next I filled in the background color.
Then I painted my image.
This shows the color variation in the black parts of the bird.
Remove the tape and voilà!
I like that I can do this in an hour or less. Since I'm starting back to school and am giving up my studio space (*bawl*), I need to find little nuggets like these that can be done in a small area and in a space of an evening. It's somewhat mindless, since I'm copying a picture exactly. I don't know how I feel about that. I hope that the time I took to compose the shot and then pick it out makes up for the simple copy-and-paste element of converting it to paint. I see this as more of a study, but I could see these be more popular than something intricate like a portrait. Lastly, I am really trying to pare down which images work in oil, versus watercolor or pencil or pastel. That is a really tricky decision to make. I hope it gets easier.
What do you think?
