Work in Progress and New Materials

Aqua has been appearing in my work a lot recently.  Time to put the aqua away.  I like variety – except of course when I don’t like variety?  And I put lots of aqua in my work?  Yeah, not then.  Anyhoo, I’m 80% finished an installation in a hallway and remarkably, there is no aqua to be seen.

Painting on the floor.  I’m living dangerously. 

This hallway has a gap between the floor and the wall (the skirting board sits behind the plasterboard).  I thought it might interrupt the work too much, so I thought about how I could cover it.  Clear contact.  Yes.  Which opened up the next possibility, painting from the wall and down onto the floor, thanks to clear contact.  An exciting prospect, to be sure.  As soon as I have some parameters for myself, I like to see how far I can bend them.  Off the wall and onto the floor we go.

I had a recent fortuitous trip to a sign writing supplier to buy some vinyl, and was able to get a proper vinyl applicator.  What a gem of a thing those things are!  Excellent for applying vinyl without bubbles.  I am still mastering the art, but I’m improving.

At first, I applied the clear contact all the way along one of the walls, but I’ve now cut that back, since I decided not to make the painting ‘droop’ down onto the floor all the way along.

Here are a few shots of the work in progress.  More photos to come when she’s finished.

I love finding new materials to work with.  And I feel like I am finding just what I need recently. 

I visited an automotive paint supplier and have gotten a hold of some of their fine line tape.  Great stuff.  I can now mask off lovely narrow lines.  Plus, it’s a super colour just by itself!  The only drawback is that it’s not great on a painted all surface.  The paint does bleed a little bit.  It does beautifully crisp lines on very smooth surfaces, like the vinyl/contact – as you might expect, since it’s made for car panels.  But it still suits my purposes.

More to come on this installation.  Stay tuned.