Gel, gel and some more gel

Those 53 pieces I was talking about, they came back from the copy shop so now its my turn again. The next couple of days I'll be gelling, gelling and then some more gelling. I bought me a nice 3.5 gallon bucket of acrylic gel so I should be good for a while. 

In the meantime I've been working on my Dutch Spring project which is coming along quite nicely I have to say. I might even be able to finish it today. In any case I will be able to show you guys something soon. For Quebec you will have to be a bit more patient though, that's going to take at least another 2 weeks.

I will be starting a new piece while I'm waiting for the gel to dry, working on two pieces at once has been a great experience so far so I'll keep doing that for a while I think.

Québec, a 53 piece puzzle...

Those of you following this blog know that I have been working on a bigger piece on Québec for the past week or so. I am now at the stage that all images have been printed and cut and the entire collage has been assembled, disassembled and numbered. Québec is going to have a whopping 53 photographs integrated into one image. Right now my canvas looks like one of those painting by numbers things. 

My next step will be facing the girl at the copy store, I feel kind of sorry for her, it must be a pain in the butt to make mirrored color copies of all these pieces while fitting as many of them as possible on one sheet while at the same time making sure that none of the pictures get cut off. I've kind of gotten used to getting these weird looks when going to a copy shop, when I was in art school I was putting orange and chestnut peels on the copy machine.

I hope my copies will be done by tomorrow morning so I can start gelling them, it is going to take me a while doing them all. First I will have to see how the gel pieces on my Dutch Spring project have turned out, I have only done two coats on those so if that works out it will safe me a lot of time on this Québec project. 

When the postman rings

Even though I have changed my technique and I am not using inkjet prints in my final works anymore, I still need them to construct my collages. Remember me and my perfect day a couple of days back? well it was only perfect until my printer ran out of ink about halfway through the day. Usually I have spare ink lying around the house but this time all I had left was ink for my small printer and that won't cut it for the big canvas I am working on right now. I can hear you thinking, what's the big deal, why not just run to the store, pick up some new cartridges and get on with it? If only life were that simple, apparently my printer needs a very rare cartridge that I can't find at any store :( 

So my perfect day was rudely interrupted by an ink cartridge crises. Luckily there is this thing called the internet where you can find anything and everything. That's why I am now eagerly waiting for the doorbell to ring, I feel like one of those dogs sitting on the doormat waiting for the postman because that man is going to make my day! As soon as those cartridges arrive my perfect day is going to pick up just where I left it a couple of days ago!

Perfect day

Today I have an entire day in my studio to work on my two projects. My Dutch Spring project is in the gelling stage so while the acrylic gel is drying I am sorting through my Quebec pictures, printing them and wrestling them into submission. And surprisingly enough I am having a great time doing it. Usually this would be the faze where I am doubting the piece but today I am having a blast, somehow it all seems to fit. It might be because I've had several trips to this city so I have loads of material to choose from or maybe its the fact that this city has so many charming buildings that almost every picture I made there will work. Whatever the reason might be, today I am very glad I chose this city as a subject because it has given me a perfect day :D

It's working so far

Working on two pieces at once is working so far. I have already finished the photo selection for my Dutch Spring project and I am now starting on sorting through my pictures of Québec. I am all excited about my Québec pictures, I have some great people pictures and Québec has some awesome buildings, I should be able to make a great piece out of them! 

2 pieces at once?

Usually I work one piece at the time but I have two great canvasses that are both begging for my attention so instead of denying and disappointing one of them I will start work on two pieces at once. I am still doing my Dutch Spring project and at the same time I will start work on a bigger piece on Québec.

For both pieces I am now at the stage of picking the photographs that I want to use, I think it will be quite nice to work on two pieces simultaneously although I might change my mind about that in the future. At least for now I will be able to get all the computer work done all at once which is nice because this is the stage that has me running around the house like a mad woman with prints in several stages, yeah I'm a bit of a mess at this stage, maybe doing two pieces will shorten this period of madness, or it might make it worse, who knows? I'll keep you posted ;)

Austin is finished

As a predicted yesterday I've finished my Austin piece and I'm very happy with it. So now that this one is finished I can move on to the next one. I've already started work on a piece in oils yesterday, just to change it up a bit, but that piece requires some drying time before I can work on it some more so in the mean time I will start work on a new piece.

I have decided to do something a little different for my next piece. This is an idea I've been toying with for a while now and it feels like the right time to let it out. Sometimes these things that have been brewing for a while don't work out, but the only way to find that out is to start working on it. For now lets just call this project Dutch Spring and then we'll whether it is going to deserve a real name or if it is one of those things that seemed better in my head... I'll keep you posted. 

Finishing 'Austin' today!

It's about 9 am when I write this and I know that by tonight my Austin piece will be finished. I spend yesterday cleaning up all of the gel pieces and about half of them are already on the canvas. It might seem weird that I know for sure that the piece will be finished tonight but thats how it works for me in this stage. I just know that when I start working things will start falling into place. 

What I like best about this stage is that when I start working now I can start by just putting the pieces of the puzzle together it is quite a soothing process which helps me get into the piece so I can finish it with the final layer of paint that knits everything together. Somehow halfway through the day the piece will start to live a life of its own and I will just be along for the ride! Allonz-y!

'Austin' the final stages

Now that I'm all back from vacation and I spend last week on some experimental work I am ready to enter the final stages of my Austin piece. The Acrylic gel has had plenty of time to dry so today I will be rubbing off the paper. This is a very delicate process that requires a lot of patience. I have decided to go piece by piece, when I disassembled my collage to get the pieces copied I numbered all the pieces on the back so now I will start with the highest number and work my way backwards.

After rubbing off the paper I will immediately place the pieces on the canvas, building up my collage again. While doing this I will sometimes have to paint the backs of the gel layers or put some paint on the canvas underneath, I am truly building this painting...

My trip to Nova Scotia

I just came back from a 10 day road trip to Nova Scotia, I have to say it is absolutely beautiful there! I made loads of pictures so I have a lot of new material to work with. I took pictures in Charlottetown (PEI), in Halifax and in Fredericton. This was off course more a nature vacation then a city trip but I think three cities/towns to work with in ten days is pretty decent. And who knows? I might even do something with all those nature pics in the future.