These pieces are from the first section of directive 2 of
Jane Davies' class on working in a series. This time my series topic was to continue working spontaneously with the leaf prints along with pushing line and mark work, adding direct paint application with washes and then keeping the palette to a more neutral or subdued color range.
At first everything came easily. I loved experimenting with the washes which got me really interested as I dug into the still wet overlays with pencil and mark making. I felt more involved with the surface and loved painting within the collage, bringing a feel of movement and freedom from the restraints of mono printing. Numbers 1 through 6 show this flow as I very gradually brought in darker colors.
Then I decided that if I wanted to really stick to the plan, I'd need to work with a lot less color. So in came more black and less color. Number 6 is the beginning of this change with it's swath of black along with a fair amount of pinky reds. I found this exciting and edgy.
Wanting to push the black further I went on to nos. 7 and 8 and several others not posted here.These pieces felt heavy and barren and I wasn't sure about continuing at this point. I really wanted to bring in more color but decided to stick with this very narrow range to see how that felt and what might happen.
I'm really glad I did. I decided to see what happened when I brought in a small amount of color, this time a very quiet, soft pink. The pieces still felt quite raw but I was satisfied and curious too. Number 11 is the most surprising and satisfying as I brought more color back in but with a balance of the darks. Very gradually I began to feel okay using this very subdued range. It has a depth, like the quiet of winter which is growing on me. I plan to do more in this vein.
Here are those pieces - all 8.5 x 11.
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