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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Studio Doodles

What's a studio doodle?

It's an artwork I throw together spontaneously when I've reached an impasse, or I'm percolating my next move, or I've nothing serious going on and wish I did, or I just don't feel like doing anything serious at all. The point is to be in the studio and do something, anything, even if it's just a doodle.

These three paintings are studio doodles, doodled one day when there was left-over paint on the palette and some cord I had used making a welted throw pillow.
I've doodled often throughout the years. Most doodles were discarded. I thought enough of these three to tuck them away. My most outstanding doodle, however, was devoured by a creature of the night.


My most fascinating doodle involved an alternator--the thing that makes a car go. When my car died one day and the prognosis was to replace the alternator, I brought the broken one home.

An alternator looks a lot like a motherboard. It's very mechanical looking and very pretty in an industrial sort of way--lots of pins and colorfully wrapped wires. I decided to incorporate it in an art piece. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I spent a day in my kitchen baking sheets and drips and dabs of acrylic paint--experimenting between thick and thin layers, which I poured out on a cookie sheet. Then dried them in the oven and draped them on the alternator. The exercise was fascinating. The sheets of dried paint would just peel off the cookie sheet, thick in some places thin in others--pending on the pour. The sheets were very pliable yet relatively strong. They draped easily.
Where they were thin the color of the sheet below showed through and formed a third color. And through them all you could still see the alternator. The experimental nature of studio doodles is you often stumble into something new to do with your materials.

When the composition pleased me, I stopped and hung the piece on the wall in the den where Honey and I admired my handiwork that evening. The next morning, it was gone. The only thing hanging on the wall was the alternator. The cat ate every shred of Cadmium paint,a poisonous pigment from what I had read. But not for cats. Dooley looked just fine sitting atop the counter waiting for breakfast.

3 comments:

  1. Doodle is the right word for these!.The alternator looks like material for a wrap or rustic dress.. I like the colors... Your imagination is quirky, L.! the first one reminds me of a game board- a lot of detail.
    Check the cat in a few days.. btw I caught mine eating a piece of dental floss I threw away!. must be the mint flavoring on it that attracted her!.

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  2. Dear Linda,
    Thank you for sharing the wonderful doodles that lift me up.
    BTY, Linda, keep your own work and style. (*I read why you changed your blog's face.) Go, Linda, go!
    I'm still living in a stone age without a computer and a difficult telly.
    Cheers, Sadami:)

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  3. Sadami, that must be very difficult. You must be going through cold turkey, very unpleasant. I hope things improve soon in your cave.

    That Alvin does amazing work. I'd like to know his technique--if he uses the airbrush and masks. His work reminds me of the airbrush paintings I've seen in the industrial design college. But photorealism isn't my thing. Too much planning, not enough spontaneity.

    And Chrissy, that alternator sculpture doodle was trashed that morning several years go. As for Dooley, he's probably gone to the great cat heaven by now? He wasn't my cat. I lost track.

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