Birth Of A Canvas
MY TENDER CREATION
MY TOOLS
Once upon a time I made my canvases from scratch, mitering the wood then sanding to create my stretcher frames. Hammering copper tacks one by one I’d stretch my Cotton Duck or Irish Linen, but that was all before I got sick. I’m not well enough to do what I once did and using power tools is a bridge too far, so now I compromise and purchase manufactured wooden stretcher bars. I cannot compromise on stretching my own canvas it’s a task I can do seated on my studio floor.
RABBIT SKIN GLUE | THE FOUNDATION
Rabbit Skin Glue Size. I’ve always used Rabbit Skin Glue as the foundation to my canvases, I’ve always been a traditionalist at heart. I made a compromise many years ago in my youth when I was in back London and I’d go though periods of being a vegetarian or vegan but always my canvases remained carnivorous.
Hot Rabbit Skin Glue marries the canvas and absorbs it into every fibre like a thirst that has always been there. Like shrink to fit Levi 501’s the canvas shrinks to fit the the frame, when it is dry I am left with the sound of a drum and that is my foundation.
SCRUBBING THIN GESSO INTO EVERY HOOK AND CRANNY OF THE CANVAS WITH HOT RABBIT SKIN GLUE
WAITING FOR GESSO TO DRY
APPLICATION OF SECOND LAYER
Gesso | Becoming Bright. In the past I have used Rabbit Skin Glue mixed with Titanium White to create my own Gesso, but times have changed and so did I and I began using Acrylic Gesso for the longevity it promises. In a traditionalist manner of old Gesso I prefer to dilute the Gesso not using it straight from the tub and work my surface up in thin layers.
This is all part of the process for me to become more intimate with the surface I will eventually create upon.
THE BIRTH OF MY SURFACE
The Birth Of A Canvas. I have to be there at the birth of my canvases and nurse them through every stage, if I painted on pre-made canvases it would be like painting on a stranger.
MY NEXT CANVASES
Finished canvases in my studio ready for creations, these two I have been working on are for 'I Woke Up And Found Myself' Here and 'Emergence'.
I Woke Up And Found Myself Here
From One Of These Canvases A Painting Three Years In The Making From Inception to It's Finished Creation.
See her completed story
