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September 10, 2008
#3 exchange sketchbook: brian prosser
by sven at 3:00 pm
More sketchbook exchange pictures. These ones are for Brian Prosser up in Seattle.
Prosser labeled the first page of each participant's section with a ballpoint pen -- so I did an out-of-the-ordinary cover page. The colorful letters at the bottom are punched out; you're actually looking through to the next page.
For whatever reason, I wasn't in a collaging mood yesterday. So I did a lot more painting than usual.
"Glum Tree" and "Ghost of Thought" are my favorites this time around. For "Glum Tree" I started very dark, and built up successive layers of lighter colors. I used some dry brush technique to give it a sense of texture.
For "Twenty-Six Down" I laid down a base color, then scribbled in pencil. I used a sharpie to outline the images that popped out of the chaos at me. Then I painted the ones I liked most. There's some stream-of-consciousness text to the right just to fill the space. It reads:
twenty six down up again out the back door running hallways in hospitals where highways intersect noise and mosquitoes dropping a glass of water and forgetting the bird. the river falling twenty six down from the table to the floor, the fork hits standing up and water courses through its tines the refrigerator is a city of snails beware the frog living there, the king of a swamp beyond this particle board passage twenty six down
Do I know what it means? No.
For this one, I laid down a basecoat of black acrylic. Then I scribbled with colored pencils -- which really stand out! I touched up the image with a few outlining strokes of paint. I was surprised at how much the image looks like it's being illuminated by black light.
More stream-of-consciousness text, using four different pens, just to create texture. The skeleton was painted in india ink on tissue paper, then applied using a glue stick. I really dig the translucency: I can imagine how you'd do this using PhotoShop -- but no digital modification occurred.
"Illuminate": Brush and ink. The spaces are filled in with acrylic.
"Box Door": Lots of layers of acrylic, piled one atop another, using a very scribbly hand. I was going to use this as a background for something else (I dunno what) -- but I liked it too much as-is, so left it. Jackson Pollock-y... But with structure hiding just below the surface.
Prosser has pages at the back of his sketchbook where he's hoping folks will do some collaborations. I figured I'd start one off by painting a gradient that implies sky and grass. I'll be curious to find out if anything ultimately comes of it.
posted by sven | September 10, 2008 3:00 PM | comments (7) | categories: sketchbook
Comments
Hurray! A post!! And one well worth waiting for! What a great collection - "black light demon cow" is somehow demonically adorable!
Posted by: Alesia at September 10, 2008 5:16 PM
Wow ... some really cool stuff there, some of it's a little dark, but I really like the box one, and the collaboration page - kinda rothko-esque but more peaceful
Posted by: rebel at September 10, 2008 5:50 PM
Cool! Thanks for the update! I love the randomness of 26 down, and Pods is classic Bonnichsen (or should I say Ichbonnse? :)
Posted by: ubatuber at September 11, 2008 9:08 AM
I'd like to give a little shout out to Alesia, Uba, and Shield -- all of whom said "hey, it's been more than a month since you last posted!" sometime during the past week. Nice to know that we're wanted. :-)
Without planning it to be, August turned out to be our summer vacation here at Scarlet Star Studios. Everyone's entitled... Right?
@Alesia: "Demonically adorable" is just about right. It reminds me of the sort of monsters you find in children's books... Transposed into the sort of carnival "house of horrors" ride where you climb into a rickety little car, and ride around the tracks while rubber-masked things leap out at you.
@Rebel: Ooh... I don't think I've ever done something that got compared to Rothko. ...Yay!
@Uba: Remember when I was talking a while back about wanting to use art processes that lead me to discover images that I didn't even know I had in me? The scribble exercise and stream-of-consciousness writing is good for that. And the result? That cow demon is the direct offspring of the image I dug out of twenty-six down. :-)
Posted by: sven at September 11, 2008 12:36 PM
i love glum tree and ghost of thought, too, but i was also surprised at how much i liked illuminate, especially in context with the other paintings. i also really liked 26 down.
(and i'm still on vacation, right? ssshh!)
Posted by: gl. at September 11, 2008 2:31 PM
Gretchin! So good of you to chime in from Maui! I didn't think you were going to be able to get an email connection, what with that sailboat having no satellite hook-up...
And the pirates...
Posted by: sven at September 11, 2008 6:07 PM
well, you know, if professor ichbonnsen can blog on the run, i can too. :)
Posted by: gl. at September 11, 2008 8:07 PM