Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Undercoat, base coat, primary coat?

Whatever the right translation is, today I´ve experimented a little bit. I´ve assembled some strecher frame and I had to ground it, of course. My Gesso is nearly empty, so it was a good way to try it.
Yesterday I´ve cooked some animal glue made from little and cute animals. Rabbits f.e. I´ve put it on the linen.  So today I´ve made the undercoat. I´ve found some old prescription. Normally it´s made with white lead, but ... ugh. The base was something similar to egg tempera. And that glue of cute animals. It has looked so yummy and creamy. I´ve used champagne-colored chalk and a little bit of titanium white pigment. Better than toxic lead.
I´m satisfied with the result. It looks good, not to blend white, even and without this little hills I always had with Gesso.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

China again


Peking duck
Chinaesk
oil on canvas (linen)
80 x 60 cm

I love Peking duck, it´s so decilious. You eat the skin only. It´s served with some kind of thin pancake, a special sauce and vegetables. You roll everything in that pancake and eat it.

Hanging animals was a normal picture in China. You can see all the stages till the meal so to speak. It´s natural, nothing hidden.
And chinese people have every situation in their mind. Good meal, loving people and so on ;-)

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Here I am


Dolly
oil, egg tempera, acrylic on canvas (linen)
60 x 45 cm

She´s not as scary as before. I´ve changed her, because I didn´t like the troublesome eyes she had at a former stage. Now I can live with her, I even like her a little bit.
Why Dolly? Well, my first intention was a doll. This Dolly-doll has spooked inside my head for quite a while. I don´t like dolls, never have, even as a child I preferred cars and such things. Dolls where scary, especially at night. I´ve always had the image of some living individual that stared with wide open eyes and whispered.
Later I´ve read that dolls symbolized other people and were used for magic. They weren´t toys.
Hmmmm ... that was a good explanation for me. For me dolls weren´t toys either.
So I had to paint something like a doll even she isn´t a normal doll. And she had to look a little run-down, used. Whatever.