process pix

How many of you take process photos as you work on a piece? I think it can be incredibly helpful if you ever want to show someone a particular technique, but also to myself, to see when I made certain choices, and where I might have gone a different path (ie, where I really should have stopped! lol!).

This painting is acrylic + medium on 19x19 inch stretched canvas, in progress & unfinished. I started it the other day when I was feeling particularly uninspired, and hadn't been for a couple weeks. A friend posted in her blog she was feeling the same. I decided the only way to get past it was to put a sharpie to work on a pristine stretched canvas. You can see the first line I made in the upper left picture.

From there I just drew as I felt, without regard for the fact that I was setting down bold black lines that it takes several layers of acrylic to cover, or the fact that it was a 19x19 inch stretched canvas. Sometimes you just have to use your materials, regardless of how 'important' you think the work you put on them should be.

I am not giving myself any rules for the work I do in the next weeks before graduate school, because there are certainly going to be enough constraints on me there. I just make work now. And I do my best to keep track of it as I go. A process shot from a painting I change may give me inspiration for another. Who knows!