Painting with Acid

 It is late afternoon and I am listening to Beethoven.  The gardens are watered, and though they are filled with weeds and gopher holes, there is promise in them.

I have been working for the last three weeks on totally new art.  I am painting with acid on steel canvases.  A painting, for me, is more like a novel while my sculptures are like poetry–lyrical and immediate.  In my paintings, the narrative is slower, more layered.     

I have yet to aquire the skills to work competently in paints.  Patina acids are a different story.  I have years of experience with them.  I know how they will react with each other, the colors they produce cold and hot, how to layer, blend, and achieve a surface at once smooth and full of depth. 

So I’ve been playing, enhancing the patinas with paint where necessary and learning how to create a desired finish.  My studio is sticky, toxic and totally mesmerizing.  I have found myself spending hours looking at these pieces, taking them in and getting lost.

Ideas for sculptures are stacking up, gestating while I learn these new techniques and break myself of my own habits.  My vocabulary is growing and I am like my gardens– full of weeds and gopher holes, and the promise of new life.

3 Responses to “Painting with Acid”

  1. DJ says:

    Glad you’re finding direction after all the contemplation.

    Balance is a verb.

  2. Destiny says:

    Thanks for all your supportive comments DJ. Its a journey isn’t it?

  3. DJ says:

    How’s the journey?

    Time for you to settle into action again…?
    Notice I didn’t say “routine”.
    Just action.
    Healthy choices come first. Then healthy action.
    Lemme know how you are…

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