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Photo Credit: Jennie
Anne Benigas
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JUDY'S JOURNAL
September 2019
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At one point, I stopped because I felt deeply happy
and wanted to savor the moment. You know how it is
- happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length
– (Robert Frost said that, I think).
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Experimenting with Art Tissue
Creating collages is the epitome of playfulness for me. Cut,
torn, crumpled and layered, collages are paper-on-paper invitations
to experiment with juxtapositions. I can drive patterns and
shapes over the surface in a game of bumper-cars. I can mimic
an orchestra’s conductor by laying down harmonious or dissonant
colors and textures. It’s all fun. When I dip into globs
of gel medium, the gluing-down process captures these decisions.
After several years of working primarily with black ink on clay
board, I asked myself, “What’s next?” It seemed
simple: I needed to return to color. Acrylic? Oil? Pastel? All
of the above? On what support – canvas, paper or board?
I took a blank 36” by 24” canvas and made an acrylic
painting. It felt good to see my table with one hundred tubes
of paint spread out in color groups.
After living with the painting for a week, I knew it needed
something more. What hadn’t I worked with in ages? Luck
was with me: on the top shelf of my stacking trays, there lay
an old packet of art tissue. Why not? I took my palette knife
and slathered gel medium over the painting. I was elbow-deep
in luscious colors, tearing and placing sheets or strips. I
tore at the tissue, wet with medium, and exposed sections of
the underpainting. At one point, I stopped because I felt deeply
happy and wanted to savor the moment. You know how it is - happiness
makes up in height what it lacks in length – (Robert Frost
said that, I think).
“Experiment #1"
After another interlude, I decided that the colors were too dark
and heavy. I chose them because the intensity matched my level
of happiness over returning to color. I experimented more with
layering colors onto smaller pieces of watercolor paper. Light
over dark or dark over light, the effects were pleasing. I ordered
two sets of art tissue, bleeding and non-bleeding, just to see
how that would be. When they arrived, I opened the box and reached
inside. Suddenly, I was holding two rainbows in my arms.
Now that I had learned something about the material, it was time
to begin again. I found a 12” by 12” oil stick and oil
pastel painting on board that was in storage. It was time to say
farewell to it in its present incarnation.
Thinking about the delicateness of art tissue, I went to Worcester’s
oldest art supply store, C.C. Lowell, and bought Krylon UV gloss
varnish to help protect the colors. Some pieces will be framed
behind glass, but I will be attaching labels warning not to hang
any of these pieces in direct light. In other words, display it
like a watercolor or any artwork!
“Underwater”
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