This what the painting looks like to date.
On the left is the backboard with the objects.
On the right is the canvas with the painted objects.
12. InPonorland
Right, here we go with this thing :) – I’ve been a bit fuzzy about this project (Project 1) not because I’m uncertain, but because of the way I think about things – I tend to let things evolve. (More about that some other time.)
First, I made what I called a “backboard” to work from – a smaller version to use as a starting point for working up into a larger canvas. I stretched linen canvas to a board, ruled off eighty squares and painted some in some colours to start. Then I assembled some objects. It took a while to choose and collect interesting, suitably-sized and coloured objects. At one point I had enough for three paintings and had to put things aside. Why all the small objects? The simple answer is I have a love/hate relationship with stuff! I am curious about what people collect and what they throw away one of the oldest forms of European painting styles is the Still Life . There’s also the practicality of making the visual image work in this instance.
If you make a painting you will usually find that there are areas of the canvas that are very much less “busy” than others. For this project to work, I needed to make every single square important and interesting as the whole composition has to work from a viewing distance of some metres as well as functioning in the tiny detail once the finished canvas is divided up into smaller areas. This isn’t something painters tend to have to think about, as a painting is usually made to be looked from a fairly fixed distance. So this means there’s going have to be a fair amount of painting going on and why it’s taking a while – I’m now about a third of the way through… fingers crossed!
The original idea was then to cut up the canvas and put the eighty pieces up for sale as separate artworks but also being a part of the whole work nevertheless. Why? One answer is that it’s very hard to sell original artwork online, not least of course because anything original and hand-crafted tends to end up being expensive. You’ve only got one item to sell after all the work you’ve done on it. Ironically, this of course also increases its value, and is why people choose to invest in art.
Another answer, is that the concept of making a larger work and cutting it up appeals to me as it fits well with ideas/themes in some of my previous work. Also, I think it’s quite appropriate for the net. I really like the idea of people who consider buying one of the eighty pieces being interconnected. I might make a website of all the finished paintings together before sale too, can imagine some nice moving links, but that’s a bit beyond me technically. (Ideas on this appreciated just let me know .)
When I first starting talking about making this I got some terrific and helpful feedback, (Thanks again!) Also, I got some great suggestions. One was about framing, suggesting framing the whole thing before cutting so that the edge and corners pieces have the frame attached. Also, lots of you thought of making a good quality print of the whole before cutting it up.
7. project1Startup
1.
This is the first post on this new blog… :) – please feel most welcome if you’ve not been around P O N O R before!
I’m just arranging things and sorting out exactly what I want to do here. Artist/blogger
Ivan Pope tells me there’s some nice new Joomla plug-ins and I’m interested in making
some widgets too… All this might take me a little while to figure out:) so if you get
bored waiting, wouldn’t blame ya :) – perhaps have a look the old *P O N O R –
there’s over 300 original art pieces over there. (I’ll still be heading over to
yours & checking out what you’re doing in the meantime:)) Also, I might
be a bit tardy, just for a few weeks as I really need some headroom
to sort out ideas for new projects/work for sale here………..
(In the meantime feel free to leave any comments below:))
Otherwise, Twitter or use the usual email thanks:)
Linda – aka P O N O R