Wax Paper and Ribbon: Session 9

session 9 (detail)
click image for larger version

session 8 (detail)

See the previous post for this painting

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.

Comments

[Spatula]

You know, I think the emphasis on marks and their style is a very modernist thing. It makes sense, because if you take away form, light and shadow, representation and narrative, and flatten the picture plane, marks become very important as a storytelling tool. In a lot of 20th century painting, the marks ARE the story - see Pollock, for instance.

I'm nursing a theory that in realism, marks should really be dictated by the nature of the subject. It makes total sense that crumpled paper would ask for different paint handling than smooth, shiny ribbon.

[Sadie Jernigan Valeri]

I totally agree about the "marks being the story" in 20th century art, Spatula. I think it goes along with the abandonment of the goal of painting as pursuit of creating a convincing illusion.

But I LIKE trying to create an illusion :)