Sunday, July 13, 2008

Giterdone

The day job is ruling my life right now, and for the next couple of months, so I'll just go ahead and post on it. Last week I squeezed in a couple of kid's room murals. This one was out of town and needed to be painted in one day, so I pre-painted a couple of details in my studio. This is on Pellon interfacing, which is well-sealed and then painted on. Cut your Walley out and adhere on-site. The technique is called marouflage and, while I've done it many times with canvas, this thin and non-textured material works really well.
It's a very simple mural, but some required double coating, etc. I had to book a bit, as I had to make my 6:00 pm birthday party in Shelbyville, which was on the way home.
I forgot to photograph the second mural, but it was a two-day jungle mural and I realized that it was the fourth time I had used some of the animals. Same pose. I had the interesting realisation that I was painting a rendering of my own rendering. I was no longer thinking of an original living creature as my source. I was remembering how to paint it, rather than thinking about how to do it. I could tell it was stylized in a weird way, and that it was anatomically off, but I couldn't really tell what was wrong or how to fix it because I was sourcing my memory of painting the imagery.

When I was a kid, I started with a real enthusiasm for the act of drawing. Once I knew I could draw well, I just kept repeating the same drawing. I drew horses. They became stylized in the same blinded way.

2 comments:

Steven LaRose said...

Horses = Spiderman. The gender split starts early for some of us.

Pellon sounds interesting, I'll have to investigate further.

Good to know that you have a day job that is keeping you busy in this economy. I've hit a lull myself. . . although, I haven't been pounding the pavement.

Carla said...

Carla K. was following Carla M.'s lead in drawing the horses. I idolized Carla M.

I kept reading about the Pellon on some message boards, and by people I really respected. It's very different from canvas. It's like a layer of paint that you are applying, and it sort of melts onto the wall. There are different thicknesses, and you can tell which you need for the application. Don't get the tear-away (for obvious reasons) or the iron-on. Get the sew-in kind. And prime with several layers of thinned medium.