Infinite Jest and Excellent Fancy

Just another memento mori for my wall.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!

Otherwise titled "The Yorick Couplet." Taken from a screenshot of Sir Laurence Olivier, doing his thing.
March, 2011

20" x 16" Canvas Board (x2)

Starring:
Titanium White
Lamp Black

Also Featuring:
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow
Viridian Green
Ultramarine Blue

I have comments to make about this work.

Infinite Jest

This was an ambitious project, and very difficult to execute. I set out to paint two canvases with the same painting at the same time. (Or to do one painting that happens to be on two separate grounds.) In black and white. I've worked in monochrome before, but on a much smaller scale. It is tough. When you have a wide variety of colors at your disposal, it is not difficult to fudge and blend and blur a painting until you achieve the desired effect. I quickly discovered that when painting in monochrome, shape is everything. I also learned that my grasp of shapes is tenuous at best. Working in grayscale has improved that grip, 

Excellent Fancy

When I began painting, I had the idea that I would paint both canvases simultaneously, brush stroke for brush stroke. This was abandoned within minutes. I found that it was much easier to paint a section on one canvas, move to the same section on the other, then go forward to a new section, then return to the first canvas and tackle that new section. I expected this painting to take twice as long as a normal painting (go figure), but I think it ended up taking longer. I would paint, say, the cloak on one canvas, move to the other canvas and paint the cloak. Then I would find that the second cloak I painted was of much higher quality than the first one and had to go back and redo the first. This happened a number of times, like my own private arms race with my arms.

All told, this work took 14 hours over the course of four days. Luckily, I logged my hours and I'm gettin' points! When I first mixed up my grays for this I had 9 distinct shades between black and white. When I finished it was down to 6. Working in monochrome is exhausting. I am glad I did it, it was highly didactic, but I won't be doing it again for a while. The eyes yearn for color; after a few hours staring at various grays under all of the lights I thought my darks were turning red and my whites blue.

Both canvases were 'finished' before I scrubbed color into one of them. I'm very pleased with how it turned out because it's so close to how I imagined it when I began, which is so rare.

I am not entirely sure what message is being communicated here. I tend not to critically analyze my works before I do 'em. When I receive inspiration, I find out what I'm thinking by expiration. I'd rather run the voodoo down than capture lightning in a bottle. Probably some shit about death not being an end but just one phase in a cycle in which life necessarily follows death. Someone ought to write a play about it, tis tis true tis jolly this true. What the hell do I know? I'm just a clown.

I imagine this painting would look best in thin black picture frames, hung on opposing walls, facing each other, in a narrow room.