For this part to my series, I focused on three things. First of all, my central idea was based on dogs. Secondly, I decided to add some larger paintings. This included canvases 16×20 inches. Lastly, I wanted to really start looking more closely at the work of one of the artists I am using for inspiration, Joan Jonas.
Part of what really caught my eye and really inspired me for this part was in the Art 21 video of Joan Jonas was when she started to show one of her techniques with these simple washes. She would open a notebook and just start to do really simple ink washes on each page of the same sort of thing. In her case she was painting insects. This really inspired me as I continued to go further with this part of the series as it helped me to increase my brush size and to start with a simple wash of what I am painting and then continue to paint the piece with more layers of paint.
I again continued with the acrylic paint as I had planned and was still pleased with the turn out. On the large canvases I didn’t want to leave the background completely white as I felt there was just too much blank space, whereas in the smaller paintings there was less blank space. I decided to add a more simple, abstract background that was related to the picture I referenced. In the end I fell this helped to achieve my full goal of this project to focus on the importance and value our pets have to us. This gives viewers sort of a mystery as to what is going on in the picture, but makes them reflect back at mainly the pet in which is painted.
The larger canvases were an interesting change to the project. I feel indifferent with it so far. I do like the increase in size and think I was able to handle it the way I wanted to, however I think it also would be interesting if my project was only small canvases and when presented in a gallery, there would just be a huge wall full of these small, intricate, paintings that each have their own separate little story. I do think as a whole, each part put together at the end will still pull off the family-like feeling I want with this idea.
