"Espiritu" began as a demonstration to our local chapter of the New Mexico Watercolor Society. Several of us had been asked to discuss ideas for salvaging or resolving "failed" paintings. I never have any shortage of THOSE!
"Espiritu"
For this work, I chose two paintings that had nothing in common but a color scheme. One was a figurative work -- unusual for me -- created with dyed tissue papers in very dark values on top of a red-gold-orange wet-in-wet wash. The second work was of a stand of trees in brilliant golds and oranges against a cerulean blue and white sky. Neither work was finished, but although I thought there was nothing I could do to fix their problems, I loved the colors and couldn't throw them in the collage bin.
The technique I wanted to demonstrate was weaving two "failures" together. To do this successfully, the two paintings to be woven need to have something in common. I picked these two because of their color schemes. I decided on a kind of radial weave to support my idea of rising spirits, and began to cut one painting horizontally in kind of an arc. The second painting was more or less cut into vertical strips, but these I also curved to make a kind of wavering pattern.
After weaving all strips, I went back in with paints and strengthened the figures on the strips that were from the "trees" painting, then splattered the whole thing with white acrylic ink to get a little sparkle back in the piece.
I think the finished work is very successful; I like the effect of rising spirits and I still love the color scheme.
The inspiration here was responding to a challenge by using what was available, letting the piece evolve gradually.
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