MAY 1, 2020

This month’s bedroom gallery project was a fun one.

For April’s initiative, I explored abstract interpretations of house iconography with oil paints. I was originally inspired to go down this route when curating this month’s moodboard, upon discovering a collection of beautiful, eclectic imagery of home, a la sketches, paintings, and collages by various artists (you can view the compilation in full here from an earlier blog post). Also, given the current stay-at-home situation, I naturally felt this was an appropriate theme for the month (hehe).

After much preliminary distress on deciding between a medium of choice, and recognizing a lack of certain materials due to art store closures (I am longing for you deeply Blick), I ultimately settled on using a combination of oil paints, cold-pressed watercolor paper, and artists tape for my explorations. (I think I broke a lot of rules with the whole oil on watercolor-paper ordeal, but the end result did not disappoint, so I’m not really thatttt mad about it).

I originally picked up oil painting in middle school, in the midst of my true child-art exploratory days (and before high school AP classes left me with minimal downtime to continue channeling my inner art-eest). I’ll admit, I had no idea what I was doing at the time, working with my $2 plastic palette and beginner oil set from the AC Moore down the street. Also, enduring daily disappointment in recognizing that my finished paintings have yet to fully dry. (For those who don’t know, oil takes its sweet, sweet time to set—days (sometimes weeks, depending on how many layers you’ve applied). I remember leaving my finished paintings on top of my refrigerator where they could dry uninterrupted, and painstakingly checking on them each day, *gently* touching and waiting for the moment that I wouldn’t see any oily-colored residue on my fingers.

But I fell in love with the medium nonetheless, and here is why:

(01) Given my perfectionist nature, oil is truly so forgiving (considering it takes a millennia to fully set, I can go over areas multiple times until I achieve my *perfect* result.)
(02) Texture, texture, texture. One simply can’t overlook the beauty and magic that comes alive when those thick, brush-strokey paint splotches finally reach touch-dry status and all you want to do is run your fingers over each bold (or subtle) brush-strokey ridge (or just take them in from afar).

I truly can’t remember the last time I used oil painting as my medium of choice, so working with it for this month’s bedroom gallery series was not only exciting, but utterly nostalgic and sentimental (*insert blissful emoji face here*).

Getting started, I took a good hour or so to experiment with various brush strokes, color palettes, and techniques, getting in the groove and discovering which direction I wanted to take my explorations. Ultimately I settled on using my wedge to carry me through the entire process. (If you’ve never used this tool before, don’t underestimate its abilities friends!! Beyond just efficiently spreading big globs of paint, this little rubber instrument can yield some pretty magical results stroke and texture-wise.) I also decided on a simple, muted color palette of whites + greys.

As for the the process: I truly wasn’t sure where to initially take my “take on home” series. I knew I wanted to focus on simple house iconography and experiment with hard lines and sharp edges to evoke a fairly minimalist feel. On a whim, I reached for my artist’s tape, and that’s when my little inspiration light bulb went off. I began by taping off house-shaped areas on my designated watercolor sheets, and then went to work with my wedge, spreading base layers of white. I then gradually began dropping in tiny splotches of black, and blended, blended, blended away until I achieved a satisfactory mix of textured grayness. Painting complete, I was then comforted with a dilemma with my taped-house-templates: to peel or not to peel?

My original intention was for the tape to serve as a template only, but once the paint was laid, I began to see the sticky layers more as an integration within the whole piece. I settled on peeling away all but one piece—and truly fell in love with the finished result. The single layer of tape stands as an evident indicator of the methodology used to achieve the crisp, sharp edges along the hard outline of the house, while also providing a *touch* of disparity, showcasing the messy, organic wedge strokes from the process. (Gen Z’ers might say, it stirs the pot). I say, it brings a level of dichotomy to a seemingly structured and intentional idea.

All in all, this month’s artistic initiative was special. This process is something I would love to continue exploring and see what other developments can emerge from further iterations in the upcoming months. Color? Texture? Scale? More tape? Stay tuned to find out 🙃