Resist!

There are few better days than one that ends with paint all over your hands.

I amend. I hated fence-painting days when I was a kid. It was always too hot, and the paint was too thick and really sticky, and it was kind of like deliberately smearing buckets and buckets of hot reddish-brown gravy all over the fence. You could never really tell whether you were getting enough coverage, and the grass along the bottom was always overgrown and full of daddy-long-legs.

But I managed to gently evict the lone spider I found in my room today via the window, and I played with a new technique, which was a delight.

First off, I was using a big roll of heavy cream-colored paper. I bought it thinking it would make good window coverings, which it didn't. It does, however, make a great ground for working with acrylic and resist.

I love saying that. Resist!

A resist, for those who don't pay $19.95 per month to get access to ArtJargon.com, is anything you put under a layer of paint to prevent it from bonding to the paper. They do a simple version of it in elementary schools -- the kids draw with crayon, and then put black paint overtop, and then you can scratch the paint away to make a picture.

I used to have a box of crayons, but when we moved, I was like, well, what do I ever use crayons for? Fool. Fool! Artists should never throw anything away. Anyway, I used oil pastel instead, and it seemed to work.

Because the acrylic medium also has low adhesion, you get an interesing resist-like effect within the brush stroke itself, and also when you layer strokes on top of each other. When you rub a cloth or even a dry brush over the surface, it wears away the paint in an interesting way. I mostly paint for the texture.

The goal was to create a big black painting for over the sofa in order to Balance the Space. I've had bad experiences trying to make art to order (sorry about the big pink painting, mum) but I thought it was worth a try. And, really, is there a better way to spend the afternoon than whacking great gouts of black paint around and then scratching it off?

Anyway, I found that while I liked the resist look, I couldn't think of a worthwhile subject to draw underneath, and the overall effect was too nervous and visually noisy for the living room.

Then I had one of those moments where everything just pulls itself together and all you need to do is watch and not interfere too much. I went and got the orchid out of the living room and drew a quick left-hand sketch of it onto the paper. Then I did some accenting with the pastel. I dug a bigger brush out of the toolbox (for a thicker, less finicky stroke) and painted not over the drawing, but right up to the edge. Man, do I like the result.

* * * * * *

I'm not the kind who closely attends to calendars. Work adds to this, being both draining and hypnotizing-- my days are consumed by sameness, adhering to each other like layers of, say, wet tissue paper. Now I look up and see that a week has passed since my last entry -- my second week in the house and at work. Things have happened -- our couch is here! (QED) My bed is here! (HURRAH) I went to a mama shower and a monologue and a tapas bar. There's even some new writing in there which I'd like to post if I can think of an ending. But I sort of have a headache, and I promised the co-conspirator we'd do some in-depth thematic analysis of popular media and its relationships to archetype and to mimesis.

For example:

"Man, Spike is hot."
"He's like, a paradox. Hot and cool at the same time."
"Joss Whedon is a genius."

-rf

*The Resist! think is a small in-joke with myself and four other people which I will be happy to explain to any inquiries. Some other time.