New collage series 2

I started this “double overlay” collage series last week and you can see the post about it on the blog if you go to look in the menu, then I got caught up in “kotowaza” paintings again before coming back to it. I did these four paintings a couple of days ago and while I still have some reservations about this series, especially with regards to framing, I am pretty happy with how things are progressing.

It takes a while to plan a painting like this because you need to work out spacially where the underpainting is going to get cut off by the pasted letters. It’s like writing a sonnet where you need to work out how to make the rhymes match the sense, you start with the hard bit then let the rest of it take care of itself.

I made the Twitter pair first, one morning getting my paints and brush ready along with water, a cutting knife, and a sheet of paper towel. I use the cheap Officeworks paints mainly substituting Japanese watercolours occasionally. I don’t use paint from a tube for these paintings as I need a wide range of paints quickly and it takes too long to open the tube, squeeze a tiny bit out onto a takeaway-container lid, and put back the cap.

I did ‘Alone Denmark’ next then ‘Gobbledygook’ to round out the day’s work. I enjoy every part of the process with the exception of the underpainting in watercolour. The reason I don’t enjoy this part is because it’s permanent and the placement is critical making it a bit nerve-wracking, so for example you can see in ‘Alone Denmark’ I didn’t quite hit the mark and the subject’s eye is missing in the final assembly.

The Posca marks that are put over the top are also a bit nerve-wracking because of the care needed to make them clean and in place so I don’t completely enjoy this part of the process but the selection of colours like the collage part is a lot of fun. I always look forward to seeing what it will look like in the end.