Try as I may, I am completely unable to make a painting without following some sort of structure. However, I look at this as a strength. I think the tendency toward abstraction is to throw all the rules of structure out the window. I'm not interested in that. These are very much rooted in the natural. The whole idea of this series is to create a personal language behind what I want to explore about the human form. My thought is that in order to do that, I have to push it to the brink of comprehensibility to learn where language ends. I'm interested in understanding where your brain as the viewer turns off the fight to comprehend, and instinct kicks in.
The first layer of these pieces are where I added the light color to the initial black/white statement. I painted it on relatively thickly, using mainly palette knives, and then turning the form with a bristle brush. There is a lot scraping and manipulating the paint to get a unique surface. I'm also using the silicone scraper to move the paint around and remove some of the paint, leaving thin "sheets" of color shapes that interact with the layer underneath.
The second layer is where I'm introducing cold wax into the mixture. In the first piece, I mixed Cremintz white, Oleoresgel, and cold wax. I then scraped this mixture over the painting with the palette knife, and swiping it with the silicone scraper, spreading the paint over the piece. This creates a veil of obscurity over the figure, and adds an interaction over the black background.
I like this stage of the painting. I've created a problem for myself that I am eager to work my way out of. Each decision adds to the history of the piece. In a perfect world, I'd have time to build the texture of the pieces in a more relaxed way, but these have to be on the gallery wall by the end of April.