So, the work for grad school continues. Fred Stonehouse, an incredible artist and prof in the UW-Madison art department, offered some great suggestions when I was totally whining about wanting to do big stuff, but that the woodcuts were taking too long (for completion of a body of work by the time my M.A. show comes around). Remember, we’re dealing with a different time frame here–grad school, which sort of condenses everything into 1 yr. increments, and each year should be a good, completely new body of work. Plus, full load of classes, day job…. Woodcuts take some time, especially big ones.
So, the dilemma was, how to make big stuff quickly and not get all picky over details like my bigger murals… I wanted to get away from the worry over detail and just be more expressive. If it worked, perhaps I could then take any good ones and make woodcuts out of them. Speaking of which, I am still making woodcuts, but I can’t physically make enough big ones to fill a show in one year, so it’ll be smaller woodcuts and big paintings/mixed media. Anyway, Fred had some great suggestions (use big, juicy brushes, and don’t worry about drips, etc)….
I think this 1st one is heading in the right direction. So far, good feedback. The most important thing is that it was a release–really just fun to do and how painting directly and with energy should feel….
The littles are here for scale. Paper is about 8ft tall…
