so my tour de force on ebay has been slowing down. I’ve been experimenting with painting on 5×7″ sheets of aluminum. I can get a 10 pack at Home Depot for about 2 bucks (20cents a pop). That’s alot cheaper than the cost of pre-stretched canvas. In school I have been told by my printmaking teacher that artists should never let dollars and cents get in the way of their art. I fully understand this theory, but truth-be-told it’s just not realistic. I feel much more free making an experimental painting on a 20 cent sheet of aluminum instead of a full-blown pre-stretched canvas. So actually, playing the dollar-and-cents game while making art can be quite liberating.
Though painting on metal is alot trickier than I anticipated. The metal is so darn shiny. White or black are the only colors that stand out. I did some experimenting with colors and they just look dull and flat on the shiny metal. I also used my favorite tool, my Dremel, to scratch the metal. That didn’t help the colored paintings. It was ok on the paintings with just white. I’m not ready to abandon the metal paintings just yet. Metal demands a proper painter’s touch. Perhaps when the weather warms up I will revisit the use of spray paints. Or house paints might be interesting because of their inherative sloppy, uncontrollable nature.
what subject matter are you painting on the metal? does the subject relate somehow to the metal material?
i’ve done some more experimenting and i’m simply not happy with applying paint onto the 5×7 meta with a brush. The metal is very unforgiving. Every nuance is magnified by using metal because of its flat, smooth nature. And because I am using 5×7 sheets of metal, there is little room for error. Every brush stroke is critical.
i began painting a new animal series on the metal. each painting features a different animal with a light bulb above its head. It is in continuation from my necktie series where I compare man’s relationship with animal. Here I play off common notion that a light bulb above one’s head represents thought. What are the animals thinking? we don’t know. By painting on metal, I am further emphasizing the role of man. Light bulbs are mechnical; produced by man . I think it really helps having the paintings on metal to help emphasize the role of man because the… Read more »
Because the weather was so nice on Sunday, I sanded, primed, and spray painted 30+ 5×7 sheets of aluminum. Part of the set will be dedicated to etching monochromatic representations of flags. I won’t be using flags like France, Germany, or Estonia. Those are just bars. There are hundreds of other flags out there that have interesting geometric shapes. I’m gonna break out the Dremel and etch the shapes into the aluminum painted all-white. I don’t expect to sell those paintings. It’s getting back to my interest in flags discovered in Kindergarten. It’ll be fun.
will you etch first and paint them afterward? that seems like the logical progression. at any rate, i think painting on metal sounds really cool. i would like to know more about this. post some photos please!
i spray painted first, then etched. If i etched first, then spray painted then the etching wouldn’t really show up. I wasn’t thinking and I spray a combo of yellow and orange on some of the aluminum. I tried etching into a couple of those sheets and the etching barely shows up. I’m quite disappointed in that. However, the ones with red/orange colors are nice. And the ones with blue/dark green really pop. I wish I sprayed more blue ones. I sprayed alot of the yellow/orange. I tried doing a photocopy transfer onto the spray-painted metal so it would be… Read more »
i can imagine the glossy paint would look tacky. Not sticky tacky, but ugly tacky. Did you do a lot with the glossy?