The Scenes Paintings: Decisions 4

I admire collage that is thick and over-stated. Turns out I can't do it. I put on a bunch of things, then take off 2/3 of them. That is what happened here. Also, I started working with the white, leaving spaces to let some of the colour action pop through.

The Scenes Paintings: Decisions 3

It must have been at this point that I decided I would not apply the 5 Lines on top of what I had going on. It had been an uncommitted intention to build these paintings up with layers, then mist over much of it with white paint, like melting memories. I didn't want to lose parts of the Lines in that process, or to lose the kids to the Lines.

It turns out the next move was about more colour and incorporating the kids.

The Scenes Paintings: Decisions 2

The next step is about the children.

I went through my photo files, looking for images that reflected the themes. I scanned, reversed, drew, scanned, added gradations, and scanned again.



 I went through files I have of my own kids' preschool endeavours. My son was a composer and my daughter filled pages with writing. I scanned them, printed them with slight shifts in colour and made them less opaque.

I printed the 2 together and reapplied gradations. Trial and error ruled the day. A lot of error.

The set of 13 completed, I decided that the collage effect would be enhanced if I tore some of the edges. I applied them to the canvases, like so:

The Scenes paintings: Decisions 1

The invitation to make something visual to be part of a performance of Schumann's Scenes From Childhood was open-ended. I immediately ruled out performance painting: 1) it is too distracting and 2) I would not have a single emotive artist response on a stage being watched. Actually, I didn't really need reasons because nobody wanted that anyway. All the same, what to do?

What I like to do is paint. Even if there were other elements involved, I decided that I would make paintings. 

Then I had to decide if there would be one big painting, paintings that connected to make a whole (more difficult working with 13) or individual paintings. I batted this around for a bit. I liked the idea of big; lots of space to make marks, maybe even get some kids involved, but I couldn't get that idea to land. Big is hard to handle and hard to move, and the content did not gel. I kept coming back to 13 paintings, not too big or too small, on canvas or board.

Not all the piano pieces are the same length and I debated if the size of painting should reflect that. I made an arbitrary choice that they would all be the same size: dimensions some number of inches in the teens.

Square or rectangle? If rectangle, landscape or portrait? I went with personal preference. I like squares. I settled on 14" x  14" canvases. The dimensions are close to the size of paper we give kids to draw and paint on. And canvas instead of board because it is lighter and there are different framing options, including not framing at all.    

The piano pieces have different themes, tones and spirit and I debated if the paintings should be visually unrelated. I decided that I wanted an over-arching tone -- the mists of childhood -- with related but varying content.  I wanted colourful child-like marks. I have watched enough children paint to kind of know how that goes. 

I  wanted elements of collage involving paper and objects. This helped me commit to using acrylics, not my go-to medium. The drying speed, in this case a bonus, usually makes me crazy.  

The decisions, to recap, are that I would make 13 paintings, on 14" x 14" canvases, using acrylic and collage, with a visual tone in common and varying elements.

I give you stage one. They are in order, 1-13. Colours were inspired by the themes of the piano pieces: