Friday, August 22, 2008

Wax Paper and Ribbon: Session 9

session 9 (detail)
click image for larger version


I spent all day working mainly on the wax paper. I found myself making very different brush strokes than usual. I haven't been paying much attention to brush strokes the last few months because I decided that worrying about my marks was making me pay more attention to my painting than to the subject. So I decided to abandon ideas about mark-making and just pay attention to the subject exclusively.

But here they are, creeping back in. I'm actually excited about it, because I feel like I am making the marks in response to the form I see, and not in response to an "inner eye" idea of what a mark should look like. These marks have a light, feathery touch and flick up at the tail. But it's totally different from how I painted the ribbons, unfortunately.

It will be interesting to see how (and if) this painting comes together.