Doing More Artwork With Young Friends

Accidental Petroglyphs, 12 x 12", Acrylic on Canvas, by Tracy Feldman

Wednesday, I had another painting day with a young friend.  She's the 7-year-old daughter of my husband's colleagues that I mentioned earlier.  I noted that for a while she's been a devoté of Pollak, but she had taken a painting class this summer that opened her to doing other things.  She particularly liked the technique using tape that her instructor had called the stained

Untitled 7/22/14, 16 x 20", Acrylic on Canvas
 by Catherine W.

glass window painting.  I suggested that to make the piece more interesting that we start with one of my old paintings that I didn't want to keep, tape a pattern over that, and do the stained glass technique over that.  While doing it, we had her experiment with using different brushes and a palette knife and creating texture.  I could tell that she got more and more comfortable as we went along because she became willing to go to my paints and choose new ones that she liked -- without waiting for me to get them for her.  We then went to have a snack, she finished up the last few "panes", and took the tape off.  We worked together on that too and we both stood back and looked at the resulting piece. I asked if she thought she was done, or if she wanted some paint dribbled on the piece. She loved that idea and we searched for what color she thought would be best.  We chose one, and I got it ready (not too thick or too thin to dribble).  The resulting pattern combines dribbles, and spatters, and drops, and I really thought it turned out great.  Thank you guest artist, Catherine.

    I also worked on a piece while Catherine painted.  I chose another piece that I realized I didn't want to keep, a smaller 12" square one and used the same tape technique as I did with Catherine. I liked it when it was done, but decided to show Catherine that you could use your fingers as brushes to dot paint on a piece.  As soon as I did that, I hated the result, so I tried to wipe it off.  However, I didn't realize that some of the underlying "pane" paint was still wet, so everything smeared.  So I had to wipe off as much as I could; unfortunately the result was a muddy mess.   I worked harder to dry the mess, and then I started again with the tape, and did a much simpler over-painting technique; I used a single color to define the "panes".  The result was OK, but it needed something more, something of a much lighter value.  Thus I laid simple geometric patterns on the stripes left from the earlier underpainting.  The value ranges were better and I liked that my geometric patterns created the impression of being  petroglyphs.  That is why the I call the piece Accidental Petroglyphs.

   As usual, I'm putting my work up on my DailyPaintworks Gallery site.  Go to it by clicking on its icon to the right). So, if you are interested, check out the auction for it.  I'm afraid that Catherine's lovely piece will stay in her own private collection for now.