Onward and Forward

Here's a photo of the beginning stages of my next sprayed painting. I'm building background layers here. Got some new cans of paint in awesome colors today. Went slice-silly with some new original stencils, too. I'm having a ball! I think I'll be able to whip out some snazzy pictures in less than half the time it usually takes me to finish a painting. Woohoo!

The spray paint bug bit me!

Thanks to the influence of stencil artist Aaron Brick, I recently purchased a few cans of Montana spray paint (the artist-grade brand that you can't find in hardware stores). I have cut a couple smaller stencils and played around with those with somewhat disappointing results, but the other night I decided to tackle a larger piece (see image below) and use only a large abstract, blob-shaped stencil with which to make rounded shapes.

With no certain subject in mind, I began by simply laying down a signature of my first name (I guess it's called a "tag" though I would never think of creating graffiti on public facade) in the center with the intention of embellishing around the perimeter. A little hesitant at first, I soon was off and running, switching cans on the fly and using them as though they were paints on my palette. How fun!

I went back to the art store again today to procure more colors, and now I plan to experiment with laying down a background with spray paint that I can perhaps paint on top of with a brush with either acrylic or oil paint. I think a marriage of the two mediums could lead to very exciting results!

Perhaps I'm straying from my preferred and most comfortable medium here and becoming a bit distracted, but it sure is fun to discover new mediums, and as I always say, there's no harm in having more tricks up your sleeve as an artist!

(click the image to zoom in)

There it is! My very first attempt at creating art with spray paint. It's a bit cluttered and messy and clearly lacks a vision, but I think it's not too shabby for my first try. There is definitely lots of room for improvement. What do you think?