I will just disappear, alright? Making of an acrylic painting, behind the scene....

I will just disappear, alright? Painting no. 2

Sometimes a painting is a sketch. Sometimes the finished and polished outlook is deceiving, because the painting is only a step towards a better realization of an idea. Every new painting of the subject is nearer to the final bundle of emotions, pictures, smells, nearer a whole story which will be crystallized in this perfect painting. This idea is not something I invented, for me this idea reveals itself as something eternal I must excavate. It’s a process Plato named anamnesis – the rediscovering of perennial wisdom. So, I can only try to catch the idea, but will never be able to really show its form.

Loss engraves the paintings of this series. I started with a more photo realistic execution: The perspective of the architecture, the landscape and the person are more or less realistic and the loss is visible. The person in the painting is a representative for the observer – both gaze into the distance, clearly missing something.

I will just disappear, alright? Painting No. 1

While painting this scene I already knew: this is too easy for me. It’s too easy to digest and to understand (intellectually). I want to find the Platonian Form or Idea of loss. I want the observer to feel more, then to understand.

The next step in this journey is a painting which is much harder to figure out. The buildings are dissolved into lines, the landscape changed into two menacing mountains which grow in nothingness and the monochrome colour range is no longer dominated by the colour grey, but black. The only remaining photo realistic element is the person in its centre. Again, the observer can’t see the face of this person, nor understand her story; he will never know her. It’s the loss of something which was already lost.

To be continued….
As you can see in my sketch book I am already thinking about a third painting :-D

Again, I begun the painting with a sketch on the canvas, but knowing, that I had to paint more or less everything black, it was very rough, only the woman was more detailed.

The next step was to paint the background and the two mountains. Here I had to stay attentive to mix the right gray (with a hint of blue) and to graduate the darkness. After this I painted the area of the later building in the foreground white and then applied masking fluid, where later the lines should appear. After drying I repainted this area completely in black.

While the black was drying, I started to work on the woman and her skirt.

Before finishing with all the details on the figure I rubbed the masking fluid away and damaged my thump :-D

The final changes are the details on the woman. I had to decide which sprinkle of colour I want to use and I have gone for magenta tinted with grey.

I hope you liked my explanations and feel free to interpret the painting completely different :-D