Welcome to my new blog!

For the first few posts, I will be copying some posts from my old blog. This one is from 2009 about my painting process.

When I exhibit my work, the first question I am asked is, "How do you do this?" So this is a hint of of my process.

In the book, Master Disaster, Susan Webb Tregay lists about 15 design strategies to unify paintings. There are line drawings in black and white that one can use to determine where many of their paintings fall especially if painting abstracts.

As soon as I saw the category of Meandering Scaffolding, I knew that at least 75% of my abstracts fall in this category. According to the author, this strategy was the signature of Jackson Pollock and the strategy is an all over pattern that fills the page from top to bottom and from side to side. They usually have small points of interest and it is the interweaving lace and webbing that makes them work.

There is a reason that my ink paintings fall into this category. Where Jackson Pollock was a slinger, pourer or dribbler of paint, I am a dripper, slinger, splatterer and pourer of alcohol inks. I am often asked how I am able to get particular patterns and how I can get some feathery effects. I work with the fluidity of the inks and the chemical reactions with different inks and resins. I only use eyedroppers, squirt bottles and I tip my board for flow. Except for the first layer of ink, I rarely use a paintbrush and even then, I often tip the board for the first layer. Ball styluses act as my paintbrushes, although they rarely touch the board. The alcohol inks have a distinct difference with many paints as alcohol inks dry almost instantly. Although alcohol or an extender can be used, this interferes with the various effects that one can get with the inks.

I cannot count the number of times people who have seen my paintings or have watched me paint and have exclaimed that I paint like Jackson Pollock. Since I have rarely been drawn to his work, I never thought much about it. But when seeing the diagram of Meandering Scaffolding, I saw my painting style perfectly. I cannot even say that I was influenced by Jackson Pollock as I never got the connection until after I had been painting with alcohol inks for over a year. Now I will use some of the other design categories that Tregay mentioned to get a different unity in my paintings. The fast drying of the alcohol inks will prevent my using some of them, but it will still expand my design strategies.