Jane Davies Sketchbook Practice Lesson 6

This is the final Lesson from the class.

In just under the wire here. I have been working on these grids for about a week and a half. I really got into this last lesson, particularly Activity 2, and I've just run out of time. I am planning to do Activity 3 over the next few weeks.

For all of these activities, I struggled with paint and color but I learned a LOT and have figured a few things out; mostly I think I just need to practice more so that I am more confident in my paint strokes.

Activity 1—Closed and Open Grids

Closed Grid – collage papers

Closed Grid–pastels. I felt a little intimidated
about using paint and was more comfortable with
oil pastels. I worked with a color palette I'm
not completely happy with but I wanted to
try something brighter/lighter than I would
normally choose.

Closed Grid – acrylic and collage. I just decided
to dive in with the paints; simple blocks of color and
a variety of collage papers including tissue paper
and some hand-made papers. Also added a little
sgraffito and scribble.

Open Grid – acrylic and collage paper with some
bubble wrap dots. You can really see the struggle I had
with the paint here...

Open Grid – acrylic and collage paper. Here I kept
the paint simple (Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold) and
did more of a wash. Then I added a darker layer
using a stencil. There were actually some areas of
black paint but they were too heavy so I
used some collage papers to cover them.

Open Grid – Quinacridone Gold again and Green Gold
with some large bubble wrap circles. I used some
stencils again. Wasn't wild about the colors at first but
when I added the collage elements, I ended up liking it.

Activity 2 — Reassembling the Grid

I really learned a lot from this, experimenting with paint, over-painting, textures and diverse materials/effects. Some of the original paintings seem a little busy but I wanted to create a lot of different areas of interest for the reconstruction. On the last couple, I tried to simplify (could be my new mantra) and I liked those too. But what I REALLY liked was reassembling them on the computer in closed grids. I like this so much I worked until midnight last night and was back at it a 7 this morning. I just love the way they all came out. And on so many of them, each individual square is it's own unique piece of art. I did these grids for all six paintings but I only had time to cut up four of them and make open grids. And I still need to go back in and add to the open grids but I am planning to do that at a later date. All pieces are approximately 9x12.

I added some iridescent gold circles, stencil,
lines from open flute corrugate, cork circles, white
gel pen scribble red dots from eraser tip and
black pattern from shelf cover material.

Here I added gold bubble wrap dots, cork circles,
white gel pen scribbles, a white grid pattern from some
woven ribbon I have and a little turquoise oil pastel.

Some of the same materials/techniques as above with
the addition of black fabric paint squiggle.

 

 

Mostly acrylic paint with some scribbles, a
little stencil, some white gel pen dots and some of
my finger prints.

This one really needs some background and additional
painted areas. I plan to add to this at a later date.

Same techniques/materials as above. I was trying to
simplify more here, which made the grid assembly more
challenging in some ways.

This was my last painting and I managed to keep it pretty simple
and yet create areas of interest through texture, color juxtaposition
and contrast.

 

Jane's comments:

Wow! Really great work on this, Arlene. Glad you were able to do the checkerboard grid on the computer so you could cut the actual pieces up into open grids. The original paintings are just perfect! Good examples of how interesting a piece can get when you are going for VARIETY, and not unity. Great job on the re-assembly, especially in the open grids. I think your intention to simplify in the last couple is well founded. You need some quiet space to make the busy areas come alive.

Oh, I forgot to comment on the Activity 1 pieces: very nice job on closed and open grids. Particularly nice balance of open space and pattern/texture in the open grids.

Also a nice comment from one of the other students:

Not to preempt the teacher; but your work is so impressive that I just couldn't resist to tell you this. The original paintings are so beautiful - the colors, the lines and the textures, all work together like a symphony. As a result the re-assembled pieces look so good. I love both versions. You inspired me. Thank You.  

This class was such a great experience and really helped to open me up and free me up. I am really looking forward to expanding on what I've learned here at Jane's Abstract Painting workshop next week. I filled and entire sketchbook plus two-thirds of two additional sketchbooks. Transitioning to artist's mode.