I’ve been giving some thought to how I moved from what I used to paint to what I’m doing now. As usual with me there was a slow unplanned process.
All of my drawings and some paintings were initially done as preliminary studies for sculpture. From a painters point of view I found the sculpture paintings rather boring so I began to put geometric overlays in them. First behind the subject and then on top of them to see what would happen.
I liked it. The next step was to add shadowing to the overlays. That added another dimension to the piece. Depth. Thus a new painting technique (for me) was born.
Tangiers Mixed Media 36″:x 48″
For a long time after that I used this concept for everything. First I would do a “normal” paintings and then..using key directional lines.. I would extend them and create the geometric patterns that sat on top of and married to the base. Both elements homogenized into a finish piece which kept your eye moving around the painting rather than seeing only what you thought you saw.
In the next step the sculptor in me came forward and I began to add texture to the overall mix. Enter another aspect. Light. The painting then looked different depending on the time of day and the way the light hit the painting. What was happening turned out to be something that pleased me. Every inch of the painting became as interesting as the whole painting so the viewer would see something in there that they had not seen before. That was a lot better to me than not seeing the painting as you walked by because it had been hanging there for a long time.
Rest Stop. This painting was done after a trip to Ecuador.
One day I wondered what might happen if I eliminated the basic drawing that everything was building upon and just work with the geometrics that I had been adding after the fact.…and that began all that I am working on now.
Abstract #43 Mixed Media 24″x30″
I’ll do a somewhat realistic painting once in a while just to prove that I can still do it but I can do realism better with a camera. To me the fun is in the abstracts . I’m not through exploring the variations of that.
Which leads to the next step. Combining sculpture and painting. I’m not ready to show any of the new work yet but you can follow the progress on my Facebook page if you are interested . https://www.facebook.com/edjaffegallery. Click the “like” button and you’ll have new postings show up on your news feed or come back here and click the Facebook button at the top of the page once in a while.
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