Day Five- Bare In Front Of You

Bare In Front Of You

20 x 20"

acrylic and oil on canvas

© Nicki Ault, 2012

This is my final effort of the week. I spent a good part of the last day experimenting and building up the layers to create the effect of the distant branches. I am extremely happy with how it turned out and in person you really get a sense of depth. I had this one framed and right now it is in the Mendel Member's Showcase, so you can see it there until Oct. 7.

Here are a few stages...

 

Initially there was a lot of glazing and layering, mostly with acrylics, although I did tint some gesso and use that at one point.

I moved outside when I began working with oils to strengthen up the branch system and cut in the blue of the sky. The class was focused on acrylics because there were a few people who were allergic to oils, but for this last piece I was really itchin' to finish with some of my favorite blue oil paints.

I felt so good at the end of the day. I felt like this result was my style in the sense that it is recognizable, but it is painted in an expressive, somewhat abstract way. This tangle of bare branches represents so many things that went on within me during that week at Emma Lake. And obviously stepping out of my comfort zone in front of a new group of people is one way that I felt "bare". I have to say, though, that there could not have been a better group of people with whom to have had the abstract experience. I think we are planning to have a group show of the work that was produced, both in our painting class and in the welding class, and I can hardly wait to have that experience with them, too.

I hope you have enjoyed the paintings and the recounting of the week's events. I am sure I have forgotten a few things so I'll put them in other posts as I think of them.

I just returned from a short, solitary painting trip up north where I helped close my parent's cabin for the season and had some alone time. That experience and the resulting paintings are next!

P.S. Thanks for reading theses posts which have been a bit longer than usual.