I’ve been making a lot of acrylic paintings on paper the past six months

I took a painting class in the summer. Online, natch, being the first summer of Covid. I wrote about it in my last post— getting unblocked; unlearning so much that had weighed don my art practice. And since that class I’ve been more prolific than I have been in years. I’ve done more acrylic paintings on paper than I can count off the top of my head!

These red figures emerged on the scene in July; at first just some shapes made by the palette knife I was using. In the original they resembled buoys or bollards. I put a small white dot on each, and they came to life suddenly. The origin on the ohms (below).

There’ve been many additional Ohm ink drawings and acrylic paintings on paper since. Their story is unfolding more with each new piece. I’ve been painting a number of ink-black landscapes, too. It’s all kind of exploration and experimentation. Less a slave to the tyranny of detail / realism— expressive marks and no sketches, no roadmaps!

I’m still very precious about keeping my brushes in good nick, but I’ve expanded my toolset to include my cutting-in brunch (previously reserved for painting walls), several metro cards, palette knives, implements used for baking and cake decorating, and as always, more and varied black pens. The Sharpie gel ballpoints have proven especially useful for working with ink and acrylic paint, especially on paper.

I usually work on gessoed paper (it’s an acrylic primer, semi-absorbent), but I’ve been getting into watercolor papers too, trying different ones out. I love the quality of hot press (smooth) paper, especially working with inks.

This is my first post in awhile. Let it be an introduction to the Ohms, in case you don’t follow me on IG and missed them. But you should definitely follow me on instagram to see what’s been unfolding— I’ve been making time-lapse process videos!

Forthcoming: I’ll get back into posting regularly here, ’cause I miss it. I’ll write and share art, but also focus on process again—I’ve been learning so much by way of experimentation and play lately.

It’s a matter of juggling all the things; work has been a beast recently and much of my time aside from that has been-you guessed it- focused on art. But this has long been a part of that, so I’m welcoming myself back to the ol’ blog. Also, if you had this bookmarked, it’s still on WP, but it’s now edaggar.art