A New Direction on an Old Path

The Christmas evidence is all taken down and gifts put away. Our company of family and friends leave tomorrow for home. But while here they encouraged me to start on something new, something that could be a series and be exciting. They even contributed opinions and parts for the new work.

I am still continuing with the “collection” watercolor paintings on old gessoed boards and am planning on using all the ones I prepared for egg temperas for this series. I will post a picture of one of the first ones done here.

To continue with the boards, I am now taking parts of the things I collect and stash in the studio and adding them together. Much like I did for The Expedition to Elsewhere: the Evidence. See some below.

But now they are assembled only to be used as the model for the painting on gessoed boards. I really like returning to my fabricated beings. And I am going to especially like documenting these specimens with carefully rendered watercolors on panels.

The goal is to have an exhibition of them. Some framed on a wall just over a large open drawer of the various sized boards placed inside like the specimens themselves. The viewer would have the sensation of having just slid the drawer open to inspect the things inside.

So the last few days I have rummaged, selected, cut and glued parts to make some things quite magical. Here are a few.

Beetle:

Dragonfly:

Bogon Moth:

Butterfly:

Snail:

And a small bug in progress:

Now I will carefully and very lightly draw each on on its board and then slowly bring it to life with light layers of watercolors. This is going to be fun!

More pictures as I progress…..