Pipe dream final - Bringing back the kid inside!

In deconstructing this one a little, I finally opted for the approach of a 3 year old...

... to underline the lack of seriousness of so called "pipe dreams". In final analysis, I decided to add some Chinese calligraphy, in essence, the Chinese characters for "dream". With this type of painting, I'm after unusual looking female characters that may create some uneasiness on the part of the observer.

Update: I noticed a few missing marks in Chinese characters which will be added before varnishing...

Pipe dream - step IV... back to wiping out paint!

With this 4th pass, I'm back to applying and wiping out paint in rapid sequences to obtain additional textural effects with paint. The bare canvas fibers (no primer) help in that respect...

It's a method that I've used before with raw cotton canvas which has a tighter knit than the raw cotton/linen. With the latter, I'm satisfied with transparent mid tones because of the beautiful gray undertone provided by the canvas. Each support has it's own temperament... and I have to adjust.

Pipe dream - step III... Pussyfooting my way to some potential solution!

Abstract backgrounds are not my forte... so I decided to sort of "half" commit to a more uniform color scheme in total contrast with the head...

I'll see what kind of textures and nuances I can add in to make it look more interesting. At any rate, it seems that this one has definitely taken an experimental slant!

Pipe dream - step II... experimenting with a syrupy first color pass!

With this one, I decided to handle the first color pass by mixing my colors with a syrupy acrylic pouring medium to see the effect at the early stage...

The challenge will be to leverage this underpainting as much as possible when graduating to thicker paint. So far, I've been using the pouring medium to obtain a dripping effect in my recent paintings. With this approach (painting above), I'm going for more uniformity with my textural effects throughout the picture plane. Eyes and lips are suboptimal at this stage since I have other plans than a straightforward rendition.

Note: So far, with raw canvas, I've been dependent upon glazes, palette knife work in certain areas and paint drips.  I now want to add textural effects through the use of semi-fluid paint at the early stage. By combining all these techniques, textural effects and color nuances should become more interesting.

Zen garden... the "after" picture!

We spent the better part of the last two days regaining control of our garden...

... and it's time to get back to some painting. I stretched a 30 X 30 raw cotton canvas and did a first pass...

 I'm not sure where I'm going with this one... but I may try more fluid colors to see what kind of textures I can get. I want to call this one "pipe dream", another painting with experimental deconstruction...

The constant gardener is brushing away the painter!

I thought the neighbours had played a joke on me when I saw one of our decorative trees completely uprooted this morning...

Apparently, the decorative tree had become too large for its rooting system. A positive outcome, we're back to the minimalist approach of a Zen garden, which is the way the Buddha wanted it in the first place! We've had rainy weather lately, and everything is growing like crazy, like the green terror...

My next painting: "Pipe dream"...

The jock take II .. I lost the running shoe, so the new title will be "bedtime story"!

I took some time this morning to finalize this second attempt based on my previous "failure". I didn't dare to part from my usual approach with raw cotton/linen though...

... I guess, the appeal of the canvas texture was just to much for me!

A couple of coats of varnish will improve color saturation.

It is possible though to achieve a better balance between thick paint and transparency working with a larger format. This was the case with a few of my previous paintings using raw cotton/linen as support. I personally prefer a better balance. Ce n'est que partie remise!

For now though, I want to pursue my experiments on regular raw canvas which has a tighter knit thus forcing me to use more paint. An example is the painting used as the header in this blog. In a nutshell, I'm still preoccupied with textural effects, but without using paint by the gallon... at least for now!