I’m not going to try to describe 2020. My family and I have been damn lucky. Looking for a bright spot, it would have to be that I’ve been able to focus on my painting and plan for what I want to do with my art into 2021. Focusing has helped mitigate the background noise whether it be politics, conspiracy theories, pointless chatter or the endless news cycle.
I opened 2020 with a small map-based piece with a Chickadee. I’m closing the year in much the same way, but with a Northern Cardinal piece. It was asked for by a friend of mine who I’ve known since Middle School. In High School she once chided me for busting at the seams to get out and would miss it. I’ll say it….grudingly…she was right. As a know-it-all teenager in Defuniak Springs, I thought the modern world came in like light filtered thru a blind. When I graduated, the expectation of what is “out there” didn’t measure up to what is really out there. I ended up settling in a small town in western New York very much the size of Defuniak in the 1980’s. We just have snowstorms instead of hurricanes.
I titled this piece I Am This That Needs to Sing after a line from a poem by Leonard Cohen. It fits the person this is for. She’s huge of heart and personality. The map is a segment from a 1939 topographic map of the Seagrove Beach area of Walton County, Florida. She indicated Seagrove had to be incorporated into the piece as well as the Cardinal. Seagrove Beach or Blue Mountain Beaches were usual landing spots when any of us hit the beach. The map’s blues and aged background color complement the Cardinal so well and helps him Pop!
The technical details. I used a Hardbord panel from Ampersand. I sealed the panel with two coats of GAC 100. I then applied three coats of acyrlic gesso sanded between coats. This makes it a superior substrate as it is not subject to expansion/contraction from moisture. To the back, using gel medium, I applied a sheet of butcher paper. I like to make notes about the map on the back. The map was applied with the same gel medium. To prep the map for painting, I applied three coats of matte medium. After completion and seasoning, a coat of thinned gloss medium was applied as a final varnish.
