The reveal

I had laid the ground work for my String Theory painting.  I got sidetracked by my desire to purchase a custom frame.  That was a bad experience.

I needed something to bring me out of my sulking.

So I got myself a new toy.

Yes, an airbrush!  A hand-held, rechargeable one.  Seems like it would be fun.

Well I am not ashamed to admit that I am willing to put my brushes aside, temporary at least, and give my new toy a run.

What better piece to experiment on than my String Theory?  

 

I've never touched an airbrush before but that makes it more exciting.  I am not spraying enamel or model paint.  I am spraying ink and watercolor essentially so I shouldn't worry about clogging up my toy.  I should be expecting better results than using my brush to write in the background color.

Right away the mist from the sprayer caused the paper to wrinkle.  The wrinkling interestingly enough was along the alum solution brushstrokes.  I believe the difference in absorption between the alum painted and non-alum painted areas was sufficient to cause the paper to wrinkle along those lines.  

My phthalo blue solution was too diluted to reveal the alum solution succinctly, but the tracks were quite visible nonetheless.  Notice my initial attempt to outline where the alum solutions should be written on the upper right hand corner.  In the end I decided it was too cumbersome so I just did everything freehand.

After several passes with my airbrush, the flame like features of my string soup emerged quite interestingly.  At first I was going to spray the whole sheet the same color, but then I liked the bands of clear spaces so I left them blank.  I also mixed in a little green color.  Martians are green, aren.t they?

After the paper had dried, I examined what had manifested.  It had that cosmic look!

The spray was not as uniform as I had envisioned.  That was a lot of fun however.  I could see all those little white filaments inside the big blue torrent.  Streams of hot radiation spewing from black holes.

I am sure I could improve on my spraying technique given sufficient time.

When I turned the gold speckled Xuan over, I did not see any seepage of the alum to the back of the paper.  This was kind of disappointing for me.  Part of the fun of painting with alum solution was to paint on the back side of the paper, taking advantage of the soak-through of alum from the front side.  Ostensibly this gold speckled paper was less permeable to alum solution as I had anticipated.

I employed this painting from the backside technique with my snow scenes.  Such as this one:

I played around with my painting by turning it upside down.  The piece was abstract enough that there was no telling as to which side is north.  

What I perceived now was a crashing wave, on a foaming sea.

Forget my string theory.  After all that contemplating about what the first moments might be like, I was still painting water, unknowingly.  I've gone off the deep end and back again. 

The sea was more convincing anyways and a lot less abstract.  No need to consider green Martians. 

Interesting!

Tail wagging the dog

I did some minor alteration to a recent landscape painting.  I augmented the phthalo blue patch and garnished it with a few dots of  green label#1.  It looked contemporary and yet classic at the same time.

Looked decent.

I normally make my own frames for works of weird dimensions.  For the popular formats I would just buy picture frames when they are on sale.  My landscape painting required a 20 in x 40 in frame.  That means custom made.

Instead of dusting off my miter saw and buying poplar stock from the lumber yard, I thought my painting deserved a proper frame.  I was sure a proper frame would make my painting more "legit".

Off to the local art supply store I went.  I buy my non-Chinese brush related supplies there.  Things like mat boards and cutting blades and gel mediums.  This art supply store happens to have a custom framing counter.

I presented my painting.  I was looking for a skinny black frame (not a cocktail dress, mind you).  The simple classic thin-black-rim frame to house my painting.  I conveyed my wishes to the people behind the counter.  Nothing fancy, just utilitarian.  

This was the printout of the work sheet:

I didn't plan to go in there as a joke.  I had all the intentions of getting a proper frame.  But it wasn't meant to be.

The price quoted me was $1560.  Yes, that was one thousand five hundred and sixty US dollars!  For a 20 in x 40 in skinny black frame.  The customer service person said that without batting an eyelash.

I was speechless.  I must be out of touch.  Really?  I could have bought a skinny black cocktail dress!

Or a shower stall kit!  I was naïve.  I was ignorant. 

I know galleries take a cut of 30 to 40 percent of whatever they sell.  They need to pay utility bills and rent and labor.  I understand.

So for me to recoup my $1560 investment in frame and  based on a 30% commission I needed to charge $2166.

That would be my overhead, just for the frame.

If I was so brash as to dare to ask for $1000 for my efforts, I needed to mark up my painting to $1429 to allow for the 30% commission.  

That meant my modest painting with the "custom" frame needed to seek $3595 in the gallery in order to reward myself with $1000 for my artistry and efforts.  To earn my one thousand dollars I must first cough up $1560 and set a retail price of $3595 and hope some idiot would buy my painting for that ridiculous sum.

Tell me it ain't so.  Please!

Something is not right.  The dog should be wagging its tail, not the other way around.