Only two hours sleep, my mind racing with gesso options and layers.
Started with some Fall in Green admin, sent out a newsletter and made sure the event was on my website and the Cornutopia Music Site.
Then cut some more wood samples and made two V-shaped chunks of wood which will hold a length of wood edge upwards. This might be useful for shaving or trimming an edge, or holding a 2.4M length of wood so that the front and sides can dry, or be painted comfortably.
Then a few more finish experiments. I've tried a few combinations. Like oil painting, the top layer is dominant due to reflection but the transmission also affects the hue. One nice thing about these coloured gessoes is less of a plastic look and finish. I made a new gesso mix with Dioxazine, a pigment which, like the phthalocyanine blues and greens, I dislike. I wondered if it would make a better 'black' with a brown top. It does look darker but the violet dominates.
I wanted to experiment with textures and thought of applying tin foil to the wet gesso layer.
You can see just how very intense the violet is, this is far darker than any of the gesso experiments so far. The texturing didn't really work very well. I'm unsure if it will ever dry correctly beneath foil.
I tried some surface effects, rolling brown crackles with a roller covered in foil. This works okay, a bit like animal print. I'm unsure if I will use it.
Broadly speaking I'm too exhausted to move or think clearly. I need, at least, to finalise the frame designs for the work I want to enter into the Discerning Eye. I don't want to enter without a frame (this might be a requirement, of course the entry and judgement is online only this year - another blow against the oil painters and for the rubbishy acrylic and 'digital' painters).
