Painting: Rorschach 15, Festive 2

Rorschach 15, Festive 2, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 19, 2012

Rorschach 15, Festive 2, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 19, 2012

Rorschach 15, Festive 2, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 19, 2012

Rorschach 15, Festive 2, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 19, 2012

Rorschach 15, before folding

So I knew that the original “Festive” rorschach looked that way because of the colors I chose, and if I did it again with the same colors it would also look good, but some part of me just wanted to see the magic happen again.  🙂

I experimented with using a glue syringe to place the black paint and in that way not get so much on there.  It kind of did that, but it was so hard to squeeze heavy body paint through that tiny thing that I still couldn’t help applying more than I wanted to.  Hmm, maybe cake decorating tips…

You may also notice this one is off-center.  One thing I have not liked about most of these is that they’re perfectly centered on the page — icky composition.  But I also wanted to maximize the space available for the paint to spread out, and have been stuck between those two goals for a while now.  Since I started doing these really.  The rule of thirds would have reduced the space too much, as would using golden sections.  So I settled for leaving just an inch or two out.  I think that did help a lot with the composition, but then I put the dots in that space.  🙂  Maybe I should have overlaid the rorschach like I did with the first Festive.

In this one I see a blue guy in an orange jump suit getting ready to spring into the air and fly.  Or a blue-eyed cyclops with green and black hair, in blue and purple curlers sticking out her blue tongue.  A fitting bride for a Cacodemon.  Or a two-headed fish folded in half at the fish market.

Here is the original “Festive“:

Rorschach 11, Festive, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 6, 2012

Painting: Rorschach 11, Festive

Rorschach 11, Festive, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 6, 2012

Rorschach 11, Festive, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 6, 2012

Rorschach 11, Festive, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 6, 2012

Rorschach 11, Festive, acrylic on 11″ x 14″ bristol paper, August 6, 2012

Rorschach 11, before

Before I folded this one I literally said to myself, “this could really suck”.  Then I opened it up and it really didn’t!

The thing I like most about these ‘rorschachs’ is the strong element of chance to them.  Chance in artwork — one of the Dada’s best ideas imo.  I squirt the paint on and try to do some kind of composing, but I really have no idea at all what it’s going to look like when I open it up.  This one looks nothing like I intended when I was laying the paint down.  I was thinking “more like a structure, architectural, than like a face or smashed bug”, but is that what I got?  Heck no!  🙂  As always with these, I got a surprise.  And I thought it looked festive.  Even the dots I added did not fall as I intended.  I don’t have as much control dripping them out of the bottle as I thought I would.  But by then I just went with it and didn’t fret too much when the paint ridges some of them hit distorted them from the dots I hoped for.

The thing I dislike about these is that they take almost zero in the way of skill.  They’re so easy I really don’t feel like I’ve done anything at all special.  But that’s just more ‘artist psychological’ nonsense — I know that much.  It’s just meaningless chatter, just a flapping door.  None of this means anything anyway.  Few things in life really do, and this is not one of them.  🙂