Etude #53

Retrospective Objective

I spend a lot of time looking for images online. Photos that I want to spend time with. The images I use are very carefully considered. I assume that everyone has this experience where, when they look through magazines or images online or wherever it is that people see photos, every once and a while you will stop and say ‘wow, that photo speaks to me… its great’. Maybe its not as strong a voice for you as it is for me, but I’m sure everyone has it. I think a great photographer is someone who is able to capture images that people respond to in this way repeatedly. (Art (Painting) should be like this, but its different too).

When you visit an artist friend, they will likely have inspirational images. A long time ago, I had a pile of scraps that I returned to over and over again. These days I go online and spend hours cycling through sites like Pinterest or Google Images or Instagram looking for compositions that hit me.

For this ETUDE series, its hard to find images that both meet the criteria I’m setting for it and then to find the volume of images that I want to work with. Sometimes I find myself settling for images that are not fully speaking to me like this one for ETUDE 53. I was ready to toss this one in and try again when I was inspired to change my approach.

There is a way I like to work with Acrylics. I like to mix colors, pour the color onto a sheet, let it dry and then cut shapes out of the acrylic to build a composition. I’ve been planning to start in on the acrylics and that method of working again. I think if done right, a person could mix the encaustic feel of a Jasper Johns American Flag and the luminosity of a Rachel Whiteread resin cast. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and the only thing holding me back is I’m trying to focus on a single medium at a time right now. Currently it is paper/mixed media.

I thought that I could still get the effect I was looking for partially here by cutting out scraps of paper the way that I would have cut the acrylic.

Inspiration:

**Jasper Johns American Flag 1954-55**

This is a painting that cemented Jasper Johns as a powerhouse for the rest of his career.
While most art histories of Johns focus on his appropriation of the flag, I think his contemporaries were drawn to his application of paint.

**Jasper Johns American Flag Detail**

You can see signs of newspaper and other material embedded in the painting. This way of painting was radically new.

I knew I wasn’t going to get this affect with this paper drawing, but the spirit and process behind the Johns flags paintings is what I had in mind.

**End of session 2**

In retrospect, I am thinking that this was the high point for this drawing.
This photo depicts the drawing at a stage where I have glued down a few shapes that make up the bulk of the figure.
I am thinking I would like to push these Etude figure studies more towards an abstracted idea of a figure like this.

**End of Session 8**

I’m done with this one.
I’m getting really frustrated with the lack of being able to make edits using this method.

I feel that this work was successful in that I attempted a new method of working. There were some aspects of that method that were good. However, I was having a hard time changing color let alone making adjustments to any compositional part of this work. I feel that this is not the right way to go in the future.

Directions: For best experience, click on an image. Use the (forward/backward) buttons.