The Moth (recent work)

The Moth is a new work, created with techniques that I have tweaked over many years as a painter. It’s a mixed-media piece, incorporating acrylic paint, gold leaf and relief work created with gesso and modeling paste. It also incorporates sgraffito, the technique of putting down a preliminary layer and scratching through subsequent layers to reveal colors or texture beneath. I will talk about the sgraffito technique. relief work and working with gold-leaf in more detail in a later post.

THE MOTH - Acrylic, gold-leaf and gesso/modeling paste relief

(above) The canvas was prepared beforehand, by building up texture with a mixture of gesso and modeling paste and allowing it to dry completely before adding several layers of thick gesso, sanding between each coat. After the canvas was prepared, I sketched the composition directly onto it with a pencil, then further defined the composition with washes of yellow ochre and burnt sienna.

things revealed…

(below) Sometimes things appear within my art that I did not place there. Such was the case of the moth in this painting. I discovered the moth early in the painting process and I knew it must stay. You can see the moth in the picture below - to the far right about mid-way down the canvas. I have defined the form further by scraping it with a razor blade.

(above) After the entire canvas was covered with a wash, I begin building layers of paint, sometimes scraping part of it off to reveal the layer of paint or texture below. Part of the original pencil drawing is still visible in the finished painting. I think of it as part of the archeology of the piece.

(above) The first under-layers of paint have been added to the sun and the sky and the red circle.

(above) Close-up view of scratched out moth

(above) The moth is now partly obscured in it’s finished form (as it appeared in it’s original form), lending a sense of mystery to the composition.