The Painting "Heaven's Vault" in Progress

Susanne Clark - Heaven's Vault
Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Canvas - $1985.00

I always get the urge to paint big works but don't actually have the space to easily work on them or put them when they are finished, however, the urge got the better of me!  I had the canvas hanging in the studio ready to work on and with the exhibition coming up at Arta Gallery I decided to get started.

I usually love to try out lots of different types of work but this year I am trying to be more disciplined and focus on one form of painting. I find working intuitively on non representational work very interesting and challenging so this is my 2014 focus.

Working intuitively I don't have any pre-planned idea of how the finished painting will look. I try to choose the predominant colour and then just go from there.  It's a scary process but I find it quite mysterious and exciting too.  The work always seems to develop out of many layers and has lots of changes as I try to bring the painting together.

At the Opening of the exhibition several people asked me how I go about creating a work like this.  While doing this painting I actually remembered to take some "in process" photos.  This is pretty amazing as I usually get so caught up in the process myself that I forget all about taking photos.

Here is the first photo, just a lot of black and grey on the white canvas.  You can see where I have scratched into the paint in some areas.

Here you can see I have started to add some colour.

More creams, golds and some calligraphic line work.

Stronger colour and gold line work.

These two are close ups that show the details of the texture and line work.  Unfortunately the gold leaf in the painting doesn't show well in the photos.

This piece is 30 inches high by 54 inches wide.  It's painted in acrylic and mixed media and is on canvas. The mixed media consists of gold leaf and gold pen, Finally here is a photo showing it "In Situ" to give you an idea of the size.  I balanced it on my fireplace mantle to take the photo before taking it to the Gallery so it's not hung a few inches above the mantle as it should be.  

Susanne Clark - Heavens Vault
Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Canvas - 30 x 53 in

Your comments and questions are always welcomed.

Paint, Paint and More Paint!

I have been painting solidly for three days but not the sort of painting that I like doing. The house we have moved into has a laundry in the basement and it was very messy. I have spent the past three days cleaning and scrubbing everything, scraping off old paint on the concrete painted floor and then giving the floor three coats of paint. It's difficult when you have to work around a washer and dryer and a huge shelving unit. For the walls, I started off using some paint that was left here in the house. I was trying to be ecologically green and not throw left over paint into the garbage but I got more than I expected! It was a green that I thought would look fresh however once I got it up it on a couple of walls I decided it was an awful shade and would make me really mad every time I went down there. That's the thing with acrylic paint. It always dries darker than it looks when wet and being an artist I should have remembered that. There was only one solution, add in lots of while and redo the two walls I had already done. It looks a lot better now but still a bit greener that I would have liked. By tomorrow it should be finished and I can get into my studio and do some real painting