![\"1-Broom\"](\"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/egallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/1-Broom.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nStage 1: Covering the canvas with paint. (Click any photo for larger view.)<\/h6>\n
It was my friend’s request that I make it large, her having seen some of my big paintings before. The piece of canvas I cut was 73″x 100.”\u00a0Adhering\u00a0it to my studio wall and applying a background color (getting rid of all the white) was a first step. The small broom makes a perfect brush for such purposes.<\/p>\n
I used acrylic paint, water-based and good for its fast drying properties. Actually it was drying a little too fast for me as I went back over portions with a wet sponge to get some of the white back for highlights. With a canvas this big, one has to work very fast at the early stages.<\/p>\n To set off the foreground from the background, I added some blue, a complimentary color to the orange-brown of the hands. I find an old housepainter’s brush works best here. If the paint drips, so be it; it just adds more interest. And everything can be gone over again.<\/p>\n Putting in and taking out; it’s all part of the painting process. Sometimes I find a roll of paper towels just right for thinning out some of the just-applied paint and restore some transparency. It’s also useful for softening edges that can get too crisp and lose naturalness.<\/p>\n Sharing a studio with a printmaker (wife Anne) has obviously influenced me. One way is using something of an “offset” approach to painting . . . applying paint to something (a “plate”) and then pressing that onto the art. As I often teach, a painter isn’t a painter because he uses a brush; he’s a painter because he uses paint! The paint can go on in any number of ways.<\/p>\n This approach is only useful on a large painting and one that allows for a bit of “non-control.” The effect, however, can be impressionistic, pointillistic, luminescent, and slightly mysterious.<\/p>\n It’s toward the end of the painting, as opposed to the beginning, that a few defining lines are introduced . . . here, finally, with a small artist’s brush. The fine-tuning at this stage goes painfully slower, but valuable, the end of a matter being always better than its beginning.<\/p>\n What I didn’t mention is that the whole thing started (after the initial idea) with a photograph. A friend took the picture, another posed for the Jesus hands; that’s my own hand in the middle, representing Thomas. It’s symbolically fitting, my representing Thomas, as Thomas represents me . . . needing a bit of proof, but after that thoroughly convinced.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nStage 2: Wiping out with a wet sponge.<\/h6>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nStage 3: Applying contrast color.<\/h6>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nStage 4: Wiping out. Note: a regular artist’s brush has not yet been used.<\/h6>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nStage 5a: Applying paint to bubble wrap.<\/h6>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nStage 5b: Pressing in the painted bubble wrap.<\/h6>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nStage 6: Establishing a few lines.<\/h6>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nStage 7: The wounds colored in and, “It is finished!”<\/h6>\n