I have trouble throwing away scraps because I know that they could always be used later for something unexpected. For this piece, I used only discarded materials including an old board, left-over wood, and scrapes of canvas that was cut from a larger piece earlier.
After playing with the fabric for a while, I knew that I wanted to make this piece a little more 3-D. I worked with the folds of the canvas and I was very intentional with the way I laid out the work. It was surprising how well the material held together with only a thick layer of gesso.
I cannot say why I chose to make a figure out of this piece but I suppose I see the human figure as a challenge, so I wanted to see what I could make out of these materials. I knew that the figure I would make would be imperfect and that is the point. Something does not have to be perfect to still be beautiful.
As I started adding paint, I enjoyed how the paint flowed from the canvas to the wood background. In many of my other paintings, I have a hard time reigning in my desire for thick layers, so with this piece, I worked primarily with only thin layers to force myself out of my usual practice. By doing this, I discovered new ways to create texture that is just as eye catching as my thickly layered paintings.
The piece came together very quickly once all the parts came together. It was a challenge to get the paint in all the cracks and crevices, but the thin layers helped it to spread more easily. I reached a point where I was concerned with overworking the piece, which I have a tendency to do, so I forced myself to step away from it and return with a fresh perspective multiple times.
The textures in this piece were a lot of fun to make. The scraping of my pallet knife cutting against the hard fabric broke the silence of the studio and left beautiful marks which created a balance of light and dark in the composition. Overall, I was surprised by this piece because it was pretty much all experimentation and it unexpectedly came together as a beautiful collage.
