CARLA KURT
Limit yourself to five colors you usually avoid and utilize all of them on a substrate of your choice.
As an artist, my truest joy comes from giving visual shape to the images in my mind and the emotions in my heart. I paint on both canvas and wood, building a story for my vision with each layer, using a variety of distressing techniques as I go—sanding, scratching, scrubbing and so on—to create textural interest and provide glimpses of the work’s history.
I find myself repeatedly drawn to certain colors that resonate with me on some instinctive level, while at the same time avoiding other colors that just don’t feel right. In fact, working in my color-comfort zone is so much a part of my creative juju I completely panicked when I was presented with the challenge to use five colors I usually avoid.
I admit it, I’m just not one who likes to play by the rules and have always managed to devise a way to gracefully circumvent boundaries and restrictions that cramp my style. I needed to fulfill my assignment without stifling my creativity … and, of course, I wanted to paint something very beautiful!
My first impulse was to re-create an existing painting in an entirely new palette. I was certain it would be an exciting process with equally exciting results.
After sketching the image on a prepared wood panel, I laid out a warm palette (my typical palette is serene and cool) and went to work methodically substituting warm for cool, red for green. But somewhere in the process, I found myself reaching for colors outside my stipulated five, and soon the painting looked a lot like the first one.
Clearly, I had not been able to see my original painting with new eyes, so I decided I would instead create something entirely new, relying on the mysterious muse of inspiration to arrive and help me choose the image and the five colors.
As it happened, I didn’t need to wait very long. One day, while listening to Richard Thompson’s hauntingly beautiful song “Beeswing,” the muse arrived, laden with gifts. As Thompson sang about his headstrong and wild love, “… a rare thing, fine as a bee’s wing ….” I visualized the painting I wanted to create—a delicate but strong woman in deep reds and browns, surrounded by nature, rendered in tones of blue and gold. The image was so vivid and compelling I could hardly wait to start!
I decided to turn to the palette of contemporary impressionist painter Anda Styler, an early mentor whose work and instruction has had a significant influence on my art. My colors consisted of Van Dyke Brown, Quinacridone Crimson, Yellow Oxide, Diarylide Yellow and Cobalt Turquoise along with the “freebies” of Titanium White and Carbon Black. These colors seemed to reflect the earthy/ethereal dichotomy of the image I visualized, and I knew I could mix them to create a delicious spectrum of other colors. I could have chromatic freedom and still play by the rules.
When I create a work of art, I channel the mood and the story of my subject, building layers of history with paint and other media so the viewer can play the role of archeologist, reading the narrative my painted artifacts reveal.
I started with a cradled birch wood panel, prepared with a single coat of gesso. After lightly sanding the surface to make it nice and smooth, I went to work, transferring a printed illustration of the figure (the transfer process adds additional texture as opposed to drawing directly on the support), blocking in the composition with thin washes of color and then moving back to the figure to concentrate on detail work. Although I usually prefer to get the background mostly settled before working on the foreground images, in this case, because the girl was my painting’s raison d’être, I was anxious to bring her to life.
As I started painting her face, I was especially pleased with my color choices. By combining Titanium White with small amounts of the other colors, I was able to create beautiful skin tones. The hair was painted with combinations of brown, crimson and Yellow Oxide, both by mixing various shades on my palette and by laying colors next to each other directly on the surface. It was a process that left me delighted but creatively depleted. She was emerging exactly as I had imagined her, mesmerizing with her bold yet vulnerable gaze, but I was stalled. I just couldn’t decide how to approach finishing the background, and, honestly, I didn’t want to ruin my beautiful girl. So I propped her up on my dresser against the mirror (that’s where I put unfinished work I want to think about) and looked at her for a couple of days until the solution revealed itself.
Moving to the background, I added more color, layer upon layer, sanding between layers. I wanted to include Richard Thompson’s song in the painting, so I made a transparency sheet of the lyrics using a very delicate script font. I planned to use the lyrics as a transfer to achieve both texture and meaning, placing them in the central section of the background, but once I got them down, the whole painting looked heavy and busy. It also looked too obvious. I prefer secrets and mystery—deeper meanings that may or may not be discovered. On top of that, the various sections of the background all seemed to be of the same value as the foreground. My painting had gone from a masterpiece to a mess! I felt devastated and very nervous. The deadline was fast approaching, and I wondered if I would be able to come through with something I would be proud to share. Once again my girl was given a time-out on the dresser so I could ponder a solution to my dilemma.
BEE’S WING
After my spirits had plummeted, my confidence had dissolved and I had started to plunge into the abyss of self-doubt and fear, I finally mustered up the courage to revisit the painting. As often happens, my inner voice saved me, commanding me to go back and regroup—try something different. So out came the gesso, and in a matter of minutes, the background was gone. Once again, I started painting and sanding and scratching with my trusty razor blade. And that’s when the magic happened. Bits of overpainted gesso started flaking off, revealing portions of the transferred text and the original base colors! I continued painting and sanding, watching as shapes emerged. The painting seemed to almost create itself, giving me hints of trees and clouds and hills, so I followed its lead. After a frightening detour, I was back in the zone and working with intuitive synergy.
I completed the background by stamping in additional texture along the bottom, transferring sheet music as leaves for the trees, drawing flowers with gel pens and stamping bits of white script to lighten the atmosphere. I then returned to the figure, painting a pattern of vines on her clothes with the added surprise of a stalk growing through her fingers, marrying her to the surrounding landscape. The finishing touch was a small bee clinging to the vine on her arm. My girl with her “brown hair zigzag around her face and a look of half surprise, like a fox caught in the headlights” (Thompson) was done, and she was everything I had initially envisioned—and more.
Many people liken the creation of art to giving birth, but I think the process of painting a challenging piece is more than that; it’s like raising a child through an easy birth, a hyperactive childhood, a troubled adolescence, and then experiencing the magical transformation that often occurs in early adulthood. After all I went through with this painting, I wanted to keep her around for a while to enjoy her beauty, her wit, her multifaceted personality, but she had places to go and people to meet. As I packed the painting to send it off to the publisher, I imagined her whispering, “As long as there’s no price on love, I’ll stay, and you wouldn’t want me any other way” (Thompson).
Although my process is often intuitive, I generally create a painting such as Beeswing using the techniques and steps that follow. I suggest these only as guidelines; after all, there really is no substitute for the magic that comes when the muse pays a visit!
CRADLED BIRCH WOOD PANEL (APOLLON)
FOAM BRUSHES
GESSO
SANDPAPER
INK JET MATTE PHOTO PAPER FOR PAPER TRANSFERS
SOFT GEL MEDIUM, GLOSS (GOLDEN) (READ PRODUCT SAFETY PRECAUTIONS)
BRAYER, BONE FOLDER, OLD CREDIT CARD FOR BURNISHING TRANSFERS
ASSORTED SPONGES
CONTÉ PENCILS—LIGHT PEACH OR LIGHT GRAY
HEAVY BODY ACRYLICS (GOLDEN) (READ PRODUCT SAFETY PRECAUTIONS)
ASSORTED ACRYLIC BRUSHES
RAZOR BLADES
3M SANDING SPONGES—MEDIUM- AND FINE-GRIT
FLORAL PATTERN AND SCRIPT STAMPS
PAPER TOWELS
GEL PENS
ACRYLIC SPRAY CLEAR COAT (READ PRODUCT SAFETY PRECAUTIONS)
-1- START WITH A WOOD PANEL IN A COMFORTABLE SIZE. USING A FOAM BRUSH, APPLY A THIN COAT OF GESSO. WHEN THE GESSO IS DRY, LIGHTLY SAND ONCE AGAIN SO THE PANEL IS SMOOTH.
-2- CHOOSE A CENTRAL IMAGE. PRINT IT OUT ON PLAIN PAPER FROM YOUR INK JET PRINTER, AND MAKE IT A MIRROR IMAGE (IT WILL REVERSE WHEN YOU TRANSFER IT). THE IMAGE CAN BE A SCAN OF YOUR OWN DRAWING, A PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPH OR ANY OTHER COPYRIGHT-FREE IMAGE. APPLY SOFT GEL MEDIUM TO BOTH THE RECEIVING SURFACE AND THE PRINTED IMAGE, AND PLACE THE IMAGE FACEDOWN ON THE PANEL. BURNISH IT WELL USING A BRAYER, A BONE FOLDER OR A CREDIT CARD, BUT BE CAREFUL NOT TO TEAR THE PAPER.
-3- ONCE THE CENTRAL IMAGE IS IN PLACE, LET IT DRY. REMOVE THE PAPER FROM THE TRANSFER BY CAREFULLY SOAKING AND RUBBING IT WITH A DAMP SPONGE. A COMBINATION OF LIGHT PRESSURE AND PATIENCE WILL REMOVE ALL THE PAPER, LEAVING THE IMAGE EMBEDDED IN THE DRY MEDIUM.
-4- SKETCH THE BACKGROUND AREAS WITH A LIGHT-COLORED CONTé PENCIL. (I PREFER A CONTé PENCIL TO OTHER DRAWING MEDIA BECAUSE IT CAN EASILY RUB OFF WITHOUT LEAVING A MARK.)
-5- PAINT IN THE BACKGROUND WITH THIN WASHES OF ACRYLICS, SANDING BETWEEN LAYERS. I FIND IT HELPFUL TO LIGHTLY FILL IN THE ENTIRE BACKGROUND SO I CAN GET AN IDEA OF THE COMPOSITION. CONTINUE PAINTING AND SANDING TO CREATE TEXTURE AND TONAL VARIATIONS.
-6- AT THIS POINT, YOU MAY WANT TO PAINT OVER YOUR TRANSFERED IMAGE (I USE MY TRANSFERS SIMPLY AS A GUIDE AND FOR THEIR TEXTURAL VALUE, PAINTING OVER THEM COMPLETELY WITH VERY FINE BRUSHES) OR CONTINUE WITH THE BACKGROUND.
-7- ONCE YOU HAVE THE BASIC BACKGROUND SHAPES PAINTED, START ADDING OTHER IMAGE TRANSFERS TO CREATE TEXTURE AND HIDDEN MEANING. ONE OF MY FAVORITE PRACTICES IS TO ADD SONG LYRICS OR LINES OF POETRY RELATED TO THE NARRATIVE OF THE PIECE. ALTHOUGH THEY WON’T ALWAYS SHOW COMPLETELY, I FEEL THEY ADD TO THE “VIBE” OF THE WORK, AND THE PATTERN AND TEXTURE ADD TO THE VISUAL APPEAL.
-8- TRY COVERING SOME OF THE TRANSFERS WITH GESSO AND PAINT. WHEN DRY, SAND OR SCRAPE WITH A RAZOR, REVEALING SECTIONS OF THE TRANSFER AND THE BASE COLORS.
-9- USE A MEDIUM-GRIT SANDING SPONGE TO SUBTRACT SHAPES, SUGGESTING BACKGROUND IMAGES SUCH AS TREES AND CLOUDS. STAMP OVER AREAS OF YOUR BACKGROUND WITH PATTERN OR SCRIPT STAMPS. I USUALLY USE ACRYLIC PAINT AND TAKE A PAPER TOWEL TO BLOT THE EXCESS PAINT FROM THE SURFACE. I THEN CREATE A MONOPRINT ON ANOTHER PART OF THE PAINTING WITH THE PAINT-COVERED TOWEL.
-10- FINISH UP DETAILS USING GEL PENS TO ADD FINE ELEMENTS.
-11- WHEN THE PAINTING IS DRY, TAKE IT TO A WELL-VENTILATED AREA AND APPLY AN EVEN COAT OF CLEAR ACRYLIC SPRAY TO FIX THE INK. ONCE THE CLEAR COAT IS DRY, YOU CAN VARNISH YOUR PAINTING WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT IT SMEARING.
Thompson, Richard. “Beeswing.” Mirror Blue. CD. Capitol Records. 1994.