Boxes

There are several aspects to being artist involving creativity that is not necessarily considered creative in the usual mindset. One such activity is the creation of a means of transport which allows a painting to arrive at its destination undamaged. I have been recently accepted into the exhibition “Artist’s Choice” at the Federation of Canadian Artists in Vancouver. The work measures 40” x 60” on canvas for which I did not have a large enough box. Styrofoam is an excellent protection when accompanied by cardboard or the plastic equivalent, Corplast. So where does one begin?

I chose to cut the 4’x8’x2” Styrofoam to the same size of the painting so the end and side pieces would be a little larger covering both the painting and the first sheet of Styrofoam. Scoring the product with a utility knife it is easily broken off if it is situated along the edge of a table and carefully pressed so the scoring opens the crack separating the two pieces.

Corplast or cardboard is measured a little larger, about ¼ “ all round on the first sheet so the edges join one another. Again we score the first cut, bend the corplast and finish the separation using the bend as a guide for the knife.

Duct tape is an effective way to hold it all together. I separated the pieces so that should I need to ship more than one painting in this size all I need do is increase the size of the edgings. When shipping two, of course, I would put the canvas side together (each separated by their own plastic covering) for added protection.

I have noticed when shipping glass the mention of “fragile” usually causes damage… I do not intend to mention it again! Life is so good!

Gray

So what constitutes gray? Is it just black and white mixed together? If so there are several different blacks on the market and each one has a slightly different look when mixed with white. There are different whites too. So even if we restrict ourselves to the limitation of black and white we would still have a variety of different results, some cool, some warm. Put together they even look like colours. Rembrandt used ivory black very successfully as a blue because blue was too expensive to buy in his day… We are so spoiled. Personally I have never been a fan of black out of the tube… It is very useful on occasion and I am not one to outlaw it so to speak. I just prefer mixing complementary colours. I am playing again. It is so good to be back in my studio playing with paint. At the moment I am mixing greens and reds together… Not really. I am layering them one after the other in order to create a darker gray surface. The balance must be there or the gray will be too green or too red. I am experimenting with interference colours, iridescence and thin layers of pure colour. So fun! I plan on mixing the colours together with white as well just to find out how they react to one another… Where am I going with all this? Only God knows! I’ll just follow the trail. Life is so good.