Trying my tutor Dr June Forster’s infamous washing of the painting technique myself. Scrubbing and rinsing off the layers of paintings. June stands by this process as a means to peel back layers and develop works.
The paintings began with an initial geometric base layer some based from a selection of photos from my digital archives, some just placing colours together that worked well. Three examples of these works can be seen below. Choosing subtle colours to contrast the darker colours that the surface would be obscured with.
From here layers were build up of heavy contrasting paint, very roughly spread over the surface, after allowing it to part dry. The surface was stripped using warm water and scrubbing creating, very interesting compostitons.
These works are rudimentary in themselves but using this process, allowed me to move on to next stage of project, and contributed later on to some of the Landscape works. Key thing learnt was that cheap cardboard stretched canvas boards are not good for this process, as they began to disintegrate somewhat in water. The obvious had initially missed me with this process.
Adapting the process using a variety of different layering processes and colours before actually washing off the paint. Alongside allowing the paint to dry for different lengths of time and using different temperatures of water. Each board was a unique composition, unrepeatable, it was a interesting experience working with a process which you can only control so far.
Chris Corish Art 