Artwork In Progress

Untitled - maybe Armoire Balance? not sure yet!

(11/2ftx2ft)

Photocopy transfer, acrylic paint and sharpie on plexiglass

This has been a very interesting and exciting artwork, mainly because although it connected to my usual style and the materials are in my comfort zone, the process has been a challenge. 

For a while now, I have been trying to incorporate color into my Balancing Act pieces, but everything I have tried has fallen short of my expectations. I want color to be present, but I don't want it to take away from the beautiful, intricate details of the Victorian furniture and precarious manner in which the furniture is stacked. One of my good, and insanely artistically talented friends suggested I try working with plexiglass, and utilize both sides to layer my ideas. 

So, I began working on the back side of the plexiglass. I transferred the armoires onto the back, then painted them white. I then cut a stencil for a kind of Victorian wallpaper, and began stenciling this on. This took a while, as once I have stenciled them all on, I have to go over each one twice more to make the color stand out enough. Then, I drew in the carpet with sharpie.  

Once all of that was finished, I painted the back with a lighter shade of yellow, and painted the carpet white. I encountered a few frustrations. One, because I was working on the back side of the glass, I had to carefully consider my next steps, because I couldn't go back. Two, I was almost working backwards compared to a typical painting process! I had to deal with the foreground first, and the background came last, but yet I had to consider the background to effectively deal with the foreground. Third, I was not expecting the sharpie to work differently on plexiglass, and when I painted the white over the carpet, it smudged the sharpie, and there was no way of fixing it... 

I am working on the front side of the plexiglass in hopes of creating a layered, 3D effect. The chandelier is being drawn on the front side with sharpie, and the plan is to go back into the chandelier with white ink a and highlight the crystals to make it all pop! To avoid my previous problem of the sharpie smudging, I am going to try spraying it with hairspray before I go back into it with the white...

I will be sure to post more pictures as I go!!!