Escher’s Crackers: part 4 – from Pollock back to Escher

(…continued from the previous posts, so go back 4 posts if you want to see the start of this!)

In the end I didn’t make you wait very long because I am nice :-)… I am back again with new photos within hours.  So, here was the painting when I finally stopped splashing it with paint:

December painting for the calendar: the final ‘Pollock’ stage

It had got a bit boring at that point – not the actual paint-splashing but the waiting for it to dry between each layer of colour, besides, I thought that would look busy enough in the finished painting. So, the last coat was put on with a brush (taking time, however, to dab it on, not actually brush it and in so doing disturb the underneath paint layers). And here we are, everything gone:

…and the final paint layer before washing.

Now the really fun bit where I wash off all those layers of paint (yes wash, in the bath, with the shower thingy), leaving whatever stays behind as a very thin layer on the paper. And this is what I got:

December Painting for the Calendar: freshly washed and ready for the final details

I am rather liking this painting now, more than I thought perhaps I would at this stage: usually the post-washing stage of my paintings requite a certain amount of ‘fixing’. It’s a hit-and-miss process but one which creates an image unlike anything else that could be done with gouache or watercolour.

Admittedly the painting is a bit… busy… not something you’d want to stare at while drunk, perhaps, but maybe that’s the point. I am also now happier with the colour of the fairies than I had thought – I had expected to work quite a lot more colour into them but I rather like the way they look (and, frankly, what colour could they be against that background?!). They look like the white half of a chess set, illegally carved in ancient fairy ivory.

So now, I am going off to consider the painting at this stage. It needs a bit more work, but maybe not as much as I had intended. Any colour washes and I shall dull down my nicely insane background, and I’m not sure I want that.

So, until the next post, again…

December Painting for the Calendar: close-up section