Labradorite 2020 (Art Made DURING Covid 19)
COVID changed all of our lives. This was a time to reinvent the world, yours- mine -ours.
There are works hanging in my house that are pieces I have always really loved. Several years ago, I specifically made a series of paintings based on my husband , David’s, extensive rock & mineral collections. Labradorite is a lovely stone with iridescent qualities & huge depth within its striations. I did one painting based on this stone. I had put on my some day to do list more of this type of stone .COVID 19 helped me to finally take this project up.
The result is twelve stretched canvas or canvas boards covered in modelling paste ( a combination of TriArt’s smooth plasticky modelling paste and speedballs rougher more porous modelling paste) as the first layer. Then many layers of very watery acrylic, high viscosity paint , used much like watercolour, painting it horizontally ( continental style) so all of the watery paint will pool in the recesses & valleys in the surface. Many of the works have 20-30 layers. There are some flashes of interference red and blue also on top. I use a top coat product by Golden called Ultra Violet Light Sensitive Gloss (UVLS-G) to give the work a rich sheen- mimicking the quality of the polished stone.