Deep water

Pen and watercolour on watercolour paper

 

Recentley I have been experimenting further with watercolour. I started with some small ones (A5) before moving to a larger format (A3), intuitively choosing colour and shade, working quickly allowing for areas of bleeding and incidental colour mixing.

I am making these thinking that they could potentially be translated into acrylic on canvas and to better understand the geometries of this system. I am attempting to create some patterned surfaces that will operate as autostereograms (better known as Magic Eye pictures) that produce the illusion of a three-dimensional scene. I have also made some digital examples of this technique and the effect works as described... 

By focusing through the surface of the image an illusion of receding space can be seen, and by narrowing sections of the pattern a gradation of depth can be achieved. This composition almost achieves the desired effect.

©ADG2021

Something between us

Posca on board [81 x 27cm]

This new one is on hand cut ply-wood with a backing frame I constructed. The colours used are a sequence of Red / Green / Blue and a black with two greys. Here I was trying to capture something of a grease smudge on a smartphone screen, a fascinating analogue glitch that makes the typically invisible (glass) visible in a dazzling spectrum of refracted light. Because of the hand-made board I primed around the outside edge to seal it and so I decided to carry the line work off the edge also.

©ADG2020

 

 

Cavern

 

Vector illustration, [1,334 x 750 pixels (326 ppi)]

These new compositions generated a desire to make another wallpaper image for iPhone. The great thing about this geometry is it is totally adaptable to any square format. Feel free to use this on your phone, but be sure to alter it to the right specifications for you screen (scale it within the frame [set to still]) and enjoy this digital cavern as a moody site for all your floating app icons.

©ADG2020

Albedo 0.30

Graphite and watercolour on canvas [50 x 40cm]

This panting is a study made using the same geometries as the recent Posca work but here is filled using a system of three blended colours alternating in left to right, top to bottom rotation within each shape. I have been making more and more drawings with this system to better understand the various interactions. 

Here, perhaps because of the use of expired watercolours, the result has strange echoes of early 20th century abstraction like those made by artists like Paul Klee or Sonia Delaunay (this was unintentional).

I am continuing experimentation with these forms, persisting with intuitive colour relations and with the purchase of a new watercolour set I expect this work to evolve further.

©ADG2020

Stay tuned

Posca on board [36 x 28cm]

This is one of a new series of drawings, and a return of the use of Posca paint-markers in my work. Following on from the geometries of recent work (based off the twelve point division of a regular format), I compose a pattern across one third of the board and then repeat and extend tessellated segments edge to edge. This is both a way of discovering unique shaped figures within a regular format and filling that regular format (rectangle) completely.

After so much shaped work I often return to standard formats to develop an approach for supporting work on canvas and to exercise a thorough understanding of the patterns generated.

The unexpected appearance of these patterns is enticing as I see their parallel to digital glitches on computer screens or a bad signal on a cathode-ray tube (CRT) television, producing analogue distortions like a vertical hold rolling screen.

©ADG2020

Space Filler

            Acrylic on hand shaped board [122 x 61cm]

A new painted object that subsumes all my previous work into one intersecting point. The twelve sided face (dodecagon) is cut from a standard rectangular board. Pulsating coloured lines weave internal geometries across the surface and three textured neutral tones hold illusory light and shadow like the facets of a cut gem stone.

This object can be hung on both vertical and horizontal planes, with no right side up. The space of nothing in the centre can be read as the closest face of the object and simultaneously as a distant void.

All rocks are from outer-space.

 

©ADG2020 

Fabricated Memories

Acrylic and permanent marker on hand shaped board [81 x 51cm]

From the beginning of this year I have been working with a geometry based within a twelve sided shape (dodecagon). It is a fascinating limitation to work within and over the past few months I have discovered a series of compositions that I am currently translating from drawings into painting.

The technique of this work is a continuation of previous paintings like 'Static Animation' and others made during 2018. In this variation I have used my present interest in the total spectrum of colour, which has also become a fascinating limitation to explore in and of itself.

The black marker was used in stages to cover the coloured ground while retaining visible traces of the scribbling process and allowing moments of translucent imperfection to expose the under painting. This was done as a way of maintaining qualities of the original drawing within the painted object, and to display qualities of 'rainbow scratch paper' for which this work was partially inspired.

©ADG2020