Following on from the textured white paintings I created I wanted to develop the sponging technique by incorporating tonal values and a more detailed portrait. I transferred one of the photographs from the photoshoot to acetate and projected it using the OHP to scale up the image.
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I painted a wash of colour over cartridge paper, followed by sponging loosely mixed black and white acrylic to create a textural base on which to create the portrait. I particularly like this in its own right - the photo does not show the full detail of the raised texture and light reflective qualities of the acrylic. I would like to create more, similar painted papers and to potentially use them in collage work.
I continued using the sponge to create the portrait, cutting it up into a variety of sizes to cover larger areas and smaller areas of detail. I think painting in this way has produced a good range of tonal values and textures, but the facial features - particularly the eyes - are less successful as it was difficult to add detail even with small pieces of sponge.
Although I was happy with some elements of the painting I thought it was simply a portrait, rather than describing the theme of presence and absence. I wondered if I could communicate this better by removing essential elements from it, which I thought were the facial features. I decided to obliterate these using white acrylic applied with defined brush strokes - in contrast to the sponging and greyscale values. It was so much more difficult than I anticipated to deliberately destroy something I had spent a lot of time creating … The result is interesting, but I think I could have gone further with the destructive element if I had been braver - perhaps slashing the paper or using a more vivid colour.
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