#expansiveexperiment

Week 8: Expansive Painting Experiment 3

I decided to replicate the experiment of sticking the paint skins to the window with the collection of smaller paint skins. The pieces that were thinner allowed light to pass through, where the paintbrush pushed hard against the surface, creating paint strokes of light.

During the daytime, the focus was on the light passing through the thin pieces of paint, but the colours were desaturated. At nighttime, the colours were more noticeable but the translucency was gone.

This reminded me of a childhood activity that was common when I was younger, where we would fill stencils of dried paint with more paint, wait for it to dry, then peel it off to stick against slick surfaces (e.g. the window or mirrors). I was unsuccessful in finding an image of this online but it was extremely common when I was younger and did it dozens of times. (Similar to the current trend of creating pancake art, where you draw the outline (in my case, they were pre-drawn acrylic paint outlines for the children) and you fill in the spaces to create a finished image - if anyone knows the name of this please let me know).

Week 8: Expansive Painting Experiment 2

I decided to create a larger dried paint skin to experiment with creating larger sizes and to experiment with using it as a material - such as cutting/ripping it or using it as another surface to paint on (shown in future experiments).

I painted it to resemble the initial painting of the assemblage, with an off-white circle with three smaller circles inside of different colours.

Even though this piece was larger and slightly thicker, it still was pliable and reacted to gravity, similar to a thick silicone sheet. The front of the paint skin still maintained the shape of brushstrokes, and the back had an interesting melting of the colours. I was quite fond of this difference, as although I spent a lot of effort to create a uniform shape, colour and tone on the visible side, after uncovering what was underneath, it was imperfectly blended and the colours seemed to warp into one another.

Week 8: Expansive Painting Experiment 1

After my discussion with Clare regarding my assemblage, attention was focused on the dried skins of the acrylic paint splotches.

In my assemblage they were both laid upon items, like a sticker, and were also crumpled up.

I decided to experiment with this material so I mixed several different colours and allowed them to dry. After peeling them from the sheet, I noticed that although the top side had dulled and become matte, the bottom was still glossy. It was also interesting to see how the colours weren’t entirely mixed on the underside and had streaks of the constituent colours.

The dried paint skins were extremely pliable and naturally fell with gravity when hanging them. After peeling I would rest them against my hand to reduce the stickiness (to ensure they didn’t all stick together) and the pieces would easily form to the shape of my hand, almost like a second skin, but only when freshly-peeled. The pieces were also slightly sticky on the underside, and could be easily scrunched up and maintain their shape.