While we spend a lot of time creating patterns and doing drawing exercises to warm up our creative juices, I thought I'd write first about one of the most exciting parts of beginning a painting: the pour! If you've seen Katherine's work, you'll soon realize how coordinated and designed it truly is despite the randomness of the individual elements. Yet, she --and now us-- lets gravity and water do the initial heavy lifting.

First, we mix our desired colors and thin the acrylic paint with water. Then, we pour! Sometimes we splash, splotch, or splatter, and other times we toss, hurl, or dribble. Our movements create a moving field of color on the paper as the watery pigment pools or forms rivulets. The paper buckles into hills and valleys, and we've suddenly got a living landscape at our feet! We allow the paper to dry, which may take several days, and the unique geography of the paper creates the forms into which we work additional masses of color and pattern.





--Emily

Labels: paint, process

On June 24th, Lisa’s group, Rodney’s group, and our group went down to the loft to try a little experiment. Inside the loft, on the first floor is a giant hole that allows us to see down into the basement. The pit is about 20 feet and has no railing around it except for orange netting and a cable. Safety first, right? To get around this little dilemma, we had found a ladder with railing at the top. I bet you’re thinking, “Wait! Whoa? Why do you need ladders and giant pits for?” Well hold your horses, I’m about to tell you.

The Purple Picassos needed a place to throw their hideous colors of paint down into the Pit of Unfortunate Doom! And guess whose group had the pleasure of being in the Pit of Doom? Rodney’s group naturally! The lovely gentlemen in that group got to wear white jumpsuits, goggles, and red bandannas while they danced in the pit. We dumped baby vomit and sherbet ice cream colored paint (told you: hideous colors,) on them from above and embellished their boring jumpsuits.


Lisa and her wonderful group got to film the dancers busting their moves while we busted our paint on them. They got the less messy end of the bargain, but the Purple Picassos and the dancers were not so lucky. Of course when you’re equipped with rowdy artists, paint inside Super Soakers, and you’ve been throwing paint on other people for awhile, of course some one ends up screaming “paint fight.” Which is why your child probably came home with a mint-colored face and a pinkish-colored shirt that was once a dark blue.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly and no one was hurt. And the next day we got to view the footage and see the amazing still-in-progress stop-motion film Lisa’s group put together, and the actual recording. The few words we could all conjure up were interesting. And the splat noises made from the paint hitting the ground didn’t help the effect of baby vomit-colored paint. But all in all, it was a wonderful experience, with pretty satisfying results. And I believe it’s safe to say, we all had oodles of fun making the video.


Also, when the paint on the ground finally dries up, the Purple Picassos shall turn the fusion of paint into a masterpiece.

-Brandi

Labels: dancing, Excelsior, paint, the pit