Rag and Bones Theater - Acrylic paint on canvas

Approaching each project as a learning experience rather than a pressure to perfection is healthy creation. Whenever I paint, write, or sketch I first start with a goal of learning. What am I going to explore with this piece? Materials? Execution? Style? Colors? Art is not the finished piece. Art is the process. It is emotional, fulfilling, satisfying, flowing, and time stops in the process if you approach your art as the process and not a product.

Rag and Bones was an execution, method, and materials study for me. I came across a Substack photographer who posted his photo series of a person wearing and draped in clothing in front of a heavy blue rich looking curtain. A stage curtain. I was hooked and looked at his photos for a few hours. I DMd him and asked if I could paint one of these photos, as a joy and exercise. He kindly invited me into his art world.

G.K. Allum's photo. I cropped down the image and focused into the clothing material in my painting. It was the denim materials in blue and yellow that I wanted to explore in color and method. I also wanted to work with a cotton canvas of 1' depth I'd not used before. Stretched canvases do vary between sellers. I can say upfront, that this canvas performed brilliantly for the project. It is the store brand of stretched canvases at Michaels store.

One process I brought forward from the beginning of my artistic journey was my setup as far as where I painted and how i laid out my tools. It occurred to me that I'd made decisions on this based on times long ago. Space was limited in college. Money was limited early in my career. I'd accommodated circumstances, and now worked in circumstances that no longer existed. I now have space, an entire 450 sq feet. I now have the money to bring the tools of choice, not accommodation. And so I completely revamped my work area to my 'now circumstance'.

This resulted in a capital L shaped desk, a table top easel with storage, room for paints and tech. And I thought, why am I putting brushes in jars? I need these laid out to see them, so I can grab whatever I want quickly. I grouped my brushes by shape. Filbert, flat, fan, round, angled, wash, and specialty. Handle length becomes irrelevant. I also added a bright white light to showcase the brushes and make my choices clear.

And my second clear choice was to set the easel aside to grid, sketch, and then glaze in 31 layers of colors to create the background curtain.

After each session on the canvas, and after it's dried fully, I apply a light coat of matte varnish. One of my favorite tricks. I paint thinly building up depth until thicker highlights. And when I start a new session the varnish allows me to wash away a brush stroke I don't like as I paint. It's a bit like oils. That varnish protects the work done, while allowing me the ability to play with the next session work. So always put down a light varnish on your dry canvas after that day's session. Works like a charm to protect what you already love. And if you've got to make changes most likely they'll have to be big decision changes and you'll need to paint over anyway. Varnish gives a creative a little wiggle room. I placed the canvas back onto the table easel to work on the shirt and jeans.

There's no denying the power of washes of color glazing. You'll capture ambient light, pigment lights, material textures, and there will be beautiful unintended surprises you just can not plan. In this piece I used cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, raw sienna, untramarine blue, and dioxazine purple. I mixed the cadmium yellow with ivory black to achieve the shading in greens. And yes, yellow and black make some delicious greens for shading work. Warm shades, not cool. I prefer warm shading. And of course, titanium white in both yellows to remove that transparency in both. Just enough titanium white to thicken the pigments.