Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Study/Experiment With New Materials

Here's a study for a much larger work. This "study" is 24" x 24" already, but I needed the working room for the new materials. I used tar (roofing tar, specifically), enamel (Rustoleum, almond color), some VanDyck Brown and mineral spirits. Most of this is painted with chemical-proof gloves, not brushes. And lots and lots of rags! These materials are hard as hell to work with and fairly counterintuitive to the normal opaque-medium painting process. There's some surface concerns in terms of the way it sets up, and I may introduce some shellac, but we'll see in a few days when it stabilizes. Oddly enough, other than the possibility of the enamel being a bit brittle, the tar compound will be nice and flexy, so I'm fairly confident it won't explode on me.

When I finish the final work, I'll elaborate on my intentionality, but you can probably guess why I'm using petroleum-based products for this subject matter.

8 comments :

www.nancygracehorton.com said...

Wow. Go Rob. That's great. Really interesting. Love the use of tar... I tried that once on my photos... really nice what you are doing with it. You are upping the anti - UG!!!

aavery said...

Wow...I'm surprised you haven't died from all the fumes yet!



and ehre you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAZYoGVM26Y

Anonymous said...

Keep the match sticks away from Rob, I am worried for his safety!

I could take a guess at why, but I'd rather wait and read your next post!

Nice shark!

Jarrod Staples said...

Rob, that looks wild. So cool. Also appropriate since I watched JAWS yesterday.

It's got dead, lifeless eyes...like a doll's eyes.

Todd Bonita said...

Hi Rob,

I took one of your classes a few years ago at Sanctuary arts, you were great. Good to see you are continuing your education at the Art Institute of Boston, I got my undergrad there and pondered the MFA program, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. The work looks great, nice experiment with those wacked out materials.
All the best,
Todd

Rob S. said...

Thanks, everyone!

Nancy - I think you can keep up just fine. Miss you!

Alysa - You think you'd get off easy if I died? NO! Zombie Illustration Instructor would still make you work or your brains would get eaten!

KT - No smoking in the studio! LOL

Jarrod the Viking - We're gonna need a bigger... canvas.

Todd - I appreciate the compliment and I'm glad you enjoyed my class! Email me if you want to know more about the program. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done, and I absolutely love it.

Nate said...

THis is rad. It's really fun to see what you're doing! Keep it up. Hope you're doing great Rob-

Dean Grey said...

Deadly and cool!

-Dean