Painting: Container

So Friday, patternsthatconnect posted The Painting as Container, with instructions on how he did it, like a painter’s internet meme.  I thought the idea was so cool I did one myself:

Container, acrylic on 11" x 14" canvas, January 2012

From patternsthatconnect:

The Rules:

1. With diluted paint lay a light ground and leave to dry
2. Pour paint of similar colour onto the ground and spread it by pushing with a brush from  the centre towards the edges of the canvas. Allow a shape to form, rather than delineating an outline. Then leave to dry.
3. Pour other similar colours (in pairs of the same colour)  onto the new shape or secondary ground, again allowing them to form their own shapes, but not allowing them to spread beyond the boundaries of the secondary ground.
4. Around the edge add a ‘frame’ of four different colours, one for each edge, one colour being the same as one in the painting and the others contrasting with the colours laid down so far. Allow the frame to meet the colours of the image but not to cover them.

What I immediately liked about the idea is that in following these rules, they become a mental structure that frees you from your own mental structures.  Meaning my own ideas, both conscious and unrealized, about how I paint.  The act of painting another way, following, or at least to some extent being guided by, someone else’s ‘rules’ allows you to realize when and how you would have done it differently, if left to your own devices.  It allows you to see what you would not have otherwise thought of, and shines some light on your own tendencies.

In other words it was very freeing, liberating, and fun with a capital ‘PH’!

For step one I used a wash of diluted fluid phthalo blue.   For everything after that point, ‘squeeze’ would be a better word than ‘pour’ for me as all my paint, except for three fluid primaries, is in tubes.  This led me to place the later globs of paint with a palette knife, just because squeezing until the glob of paint drops put way too much paint on the canvas.  It would have been more unpredictable if I did have paint to pour.  I think the main thing though was to let the shapes painted form ‘on their own’ so to speak, without any planning before.  I did that, and that was what was most enlightening.  🙂

And hey, I didn’t have to think of a name for this one either!