Saturday, October 29, 2011

Ch-ch-ch-anges Part Something or Other (4?)...... You know the drill

By all that is artistically changeable - lookey where we are now.
As you can see, we've taken a whole new direction and changed the legs/feet completely. I took the pic of the painting with all the 'correct-o change-o' bits visible. In the finished piece, most hopefully and I should know what I'm doing you'd think, you should not be able to tell where all these new bits are. (remember 'Pentimento' from a few posts back? This is generally how it happens)You've gotta hand it to Acrylic for offering one of the easiest to change mediums around. BUT! (and this is the part you need to pay attention to, kids) You MUST take out as much of your 'old' work as you can.
For me that means scrubbing the canvas with one of those very rough synthetic pads to get as close to the original canvas surface as possible. This can be tricky and often you can destroy a work by scrubbing too vigorously and thereby going right through the canvas and leaving a hole. *GASP* (and you will)
And that pretty much is game over for ya. Although Robert Genn did give a great tutorial in repairing of torn or damaged canvases and I admit I've tried his suggestions a couple of times. One worked (a finished canvas that tore slightly after a gust of wind smacked it down off the display easel) and another one where I did scrub too hard and left a big hole along an edge, did not. (and that fix-up was a big FAIL.)
The biggest reason for scrubbing out as much of the old painting part, is that if you just paint over it, you will end up with visible 'ridges' where the old lines were and that just looks crappy. Let's not mince words. You can see in the above that there are tell-tale parts where the old sketch is quite obvious....but I wanted to show you what I meant. I will be rescrubbing after this little tutorial.  The other reason of scrubbing down is for the texture. Canvas, unless you've gesso'ed it with 5 or more coats, (and some artists do) retains it's 'rough' weave texture. I happen to like that texture. I mean, I paint on canvas so I'd like it to appear genuine. This is a personal preference and you can most certainly choose your own way.
That's the nice thing about Art in general.
Anypayattentiontotheteacherway, I'm wa-a-ay happier with the layout of the figure now. Before with those 'akimbo' legs it just looked...well, awkward. I even tried painting in a stool but that sucked. There is a better flow and balance too.
And we all need that, don't we.
Stay tuned!
ps....I want to add that after you've scrubbed out the old, you will 're-gesso' that spot. This is to 'match' the original pristine surface before all this fol-de-rol change-o scrubbo happened.

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