Practice Makes Perfect

So, here’s the drill.  I want to do a series of four paintings using a black and white checkerboard pattern as the background.  At least, that’s the plan right now.  Sometimes things change.  Anyway, as it stands now, I want to develop a dependable way to paint a neat and accurate checkerboard pattern on the canvas.  My previous post showed my first attempt at creating this pattern using masking tape. 

The paintings in this series are going to be small and square so I found this scrap canvas to help me perfect my technique.  Here’s a shot of the first round of masking off the canvas to do the first set of squares.  This step alone gave me a valuable piece of information.  On my final paintings, I will want to use a square canvas with an odd number of inches.  As you can see, this 6-inch square canvas won’t have the same color block in each corner and, for my purposes, that would be desirable. 

This is the first set of squares.  To improve on my attempt from yesterday, I didn’t mix as much water into the acrylic paint.  In all cases, by the way, I’m mixing my own black using dioxazine purple, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and sap green.  Mixing my own black instead of using black from a tube gives a “softer” black that won’t be as stark against the opposing white blocks and should serve the primary image in the painting better because it will compliment rather than compete with the various colors in the subject of the painting.

 

Here’s a close-up of the first set of squares.  Oops, still kind of sloppy there.  As much as I burnished the edges of the masking tape to create a seal against paint leakage, the paint still crept under the edge of the tape.  Not pretty!

Here’s the scrap canvas with the second set of squares in place.  The first and third rows from the top of the canvas were painted in the first set.  The second and fourth rows were painted in the second set of squares.  When I do the actual paintings, I’ll describe the masking process in more detail.  Suffice it to say, the changes made in the technique of applying the paint for the second set of squares made all the difference.  For the second set of squares I placed my brush on the masking tape outside the square and dragged it toward the center of the square being painted.  I never dragged the brush from inside the square out onto the masking tape.  Also, I used nothing but paint.  After initially wetting my brush and blotting it on a paper towel, I mixed my black paint as described above without adding any water to the mixture.  That kept the paint from thinning and being able to escape its allotted square by seeping under the edge of the masking tape.

I’m happy with the second set of squares.  When I start the real painting, I’ll use the technique I used to paint them.  As well, I’ll go buy some 7" square gallery wrapped canvases instead of using the 6" canvases I thought I wanted.  That will place a black block in each corner and better balance the background.  Also, I believe I’ll apply an initial coat of white paint or gesso to the primed canvas to make the surface a little smoother and make a better seal between the canvas and the tape.

Well, next I’ll begin experimenting with mixing the colors to be used for the subjects of these paintings.  I hope I can make them look realistic enough.  I want to move away from abstract and cartoonish towards realism but I’m not to the extreme of photo realism.  We’ll see.  Thanks for your time.  Happy creating!