No Excuse, small painting 11

So this idea of naming non-representational paintings with the best words from page 42 of a random book, just isn’t working for me.  Seemed like an awesome idea at the time and the words were good, but the names don’t stick.  Of the paintings I’ve named this way, even I can’t remember what their names are, with one or two exceptions.  So enough of that!  🙂  I’ll just have to try harder to really name them.  As if the gods of painting were trying to encourage me in this notion, I got lucky with a name for this one, because there is really just no excuse for this:

"No Excuse", small painting #11, acrylic on 8"x10" canvas board, March 2012

The “small paintings, on paper that doesn’t matter” have moved to 8″ x 10″ canvas boards, which don’t curl up.  Even though the canvas boards are  pretty cheap — about $1.33 each — that still ‘matters’ a little more than paper from a pad I got for free…  I was afraid this would change the ‘nothing to lose’ dynamic that gave me such a sense of freedom — thinking ‘go ahead, try it.  If it doesn’t work it’s just a piece of paper — just throw it away’.   And cheap though the canvas boards are, I did feel more hesitant at first.  Did not have the ‘what the hell’ feeling of liberation that I did on paper of no significance.  But, I really do dislike how paper curls up as the paint dries.  So I did not have the same freedom at first, but I think I’m getting past that, I think I can get past that.  Yeah, I know, strange and kinda ridiculous things going on in my head with this…  We’ll see how it goes.

So with “No Excuse”, I started with a red-orange-yellow gradation and some black lines intended to be a structure to ‘hang’ the abstract blobs on.  It looked like I’d painted Chernobyl or September 11th or something equally hellish at that point.  I masked parts of the painting and painted a few blobs and then just really lost interest, completely.  Set it aside for days.  When next I found myself staring at it, wondering what to do with it, I looked over and saw my palette knife.  Well Hello palette knife!  It’s been a while!  🙂  Did some fun paint smearing and mixing with the palette knife, added lines and the broad white stripes, more palette knife stuff, and finished it with some dots and drips.  What a mess!  There’s just no excuse for this!  🙂  But I like it.