In the Studio — kathryn j neale studio

Accidental marks and blobs and whatever are just a part of the painting process. Yes you can get tight, detailed and very controlled painting. But "freestyle painting" I guess it has been referred to today, means to me, free, loose, natural, organic, and barely controlled. I LOVE accidents! And you have to be totally OK with stuff going wrong. Just like raising a kid - this paint combo between tool and paint just has a mind of it's own. And your job is to roll with the unexpected and make that "accident" work for you.

The above images clearly show that as I was using a rubber patterned roller, because the paint's thickness is slippery, and the fact that the paper is not great for this kind of technique (really I should be doing this on fabric or the wall!), the roller literally slipped with the paint and smeared all over the place. The top image shows smearing top-left to the right-down areas. In this second image above, right in the middle you can see those flowers are not crisp at all! Totally smeared and blending into one another. But that's the beauty of it! It's not perfect. I'm not trying to render a beautiful pattern (although that is what these rubber rollers are meant to do of course). I love the "suggested" patterned effect. It also makes it visually more interesting, the eye is challenged and stimulated by the irregularities, and is surprised (perhaps annoyed but that is ok too) of the slight variations and always a joy to disrupt what is "expected" for the viewer. It also suggests some kind of worn, vintage look. Things eroding falling away, not perfect. This is even more obvious in the painting above. I did not "properly" even out the paint in the roller so it blobbed on in uneven marks. Super gloppy and then super faint. But still suggesting some kind of pattern and uniformity that I think is quite interesting.

And finally, the above image show that as I was completely running out of paint, rolling it over and over onto the canvas, the pattern completely disappeared leaving random, almost brush-like strokes reminiscent of a Gerald Richter painting abstract painting. An effect I totally couldn't have possibly come up with in my head! Proof you have to try and try and experiment. Roll with it. I'm never disappointed so you have to open your mind and let yourself turn those "mistakes" into those precious parts of the painting that is UNIQUE, special, one-of-a-kind, different, unexpected and beautiful.

This is a first in my series of "works in progress" with myself. A way to document and think about and share the process of painting. This work is an interesting piece. I started it actually with the large navy blue dark brush work about 2 years ago! It has been on my wall in my basement for that long just waiting and waiting to get worked on.

Last week, I went crazy with the patterned roller from The Painted House (Etsy shop) which is so much fun to play with. And then my colors right now are out of the bottle copper, ochre, .......

This piece definitely has quite a bit to go but taking close ups of some of the work as it goes along is always a lot of fun. My favorite stages of a painting are these pre-middle-to-middle stages where layers are starting to overlap and play with each other. So much of this type of painting method relies on intuitive marks and the "accidental" or spontaneous, unplanned marks. It's a weird balance between initiating the layer but then knowing "when to stop!"

My favorite part of this painting too is that the paint just does what it wants too. The uncontrolled nature is what is exciting. You start the process but have no control of the final outcome. These drips and drops above exemplify the juiciness of this type of painting with lots of water (my background is watercolor). And of course you cannot deny the power of gravity with the drops dripping "down" because the piece is hanging on the wall. That seems pretty obvious, but nothing is "obvious" when it comes to painting. This is a decision I specifically made here. I could've not have drops, therefore not put that much water so it effectively drips down. I could've easily just put the whole thing on the ground and let the water "pool." So it is a deliberate decision, but how the water drips is out of my control! The middle right part of the painting is quite lovely now with the navy blue peeking through the copper drips as it's hard to tell which layer is which--this is quite intriguing. And as a viewer, that's all you want is to have the viewer stop and take a "double-take" because that's what's interesting to the eye.

TThis section you can see my brush strokes more distinctively because of the bright red, pink colors. But the same effect is also shown except you can tell that I've dipped into a couple different colors simultaneously with my large brush and twirled it around in my hand to create "smeared" effect (especially in the middle with the red/hot pink turning into orange/copper. There's a rhythm to this painting specifically as well. We shall see if it continues to the final look!

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