Lean In

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I split my visual art between landscape, still life, and figurative work, though in both landscape and still life I always, with rare exception, have a human figure.

Lean In will have its primary focus on the human figure with the landscape acting as platform to display some of the most unusual and beautiful work I have either performed or viewed in my career as a professional ballet dancer.

Each piece will be sculpted in clay then a mold made of it in plaster to eventually be used to cast paper in bas relief.

(See construction process video at the bottom of the article).

When the paper is completely dry, external sizing is added to both sides. The paper is then attached to a 1-1/2 in thick wooden frame stretched with duck cotton canvas. Once the acrylic gel attaching the canvas to the wood frame is dry, the paper is coated with gesso—thin layers are add with a watercolor brush in order to maintain the details of the cast paper.

After several days for the assemble work to completely dry, I paint it in oils. I tried watercolor but I do not like its consistency and it would take many months—or years—before I could be as skilled as I am with oils. At this stage I’m attempting to process my paining in a similar fashion to Maxfield Parrish. (Images of Parrish's work | Maxfield Parrish)

Parrish applied numerous thin, transparent layers of oil paint to build up color and depth, though mine will be more washed out than Parrish’s. I plan on doing a number of different levels of applied paint, some with most of the white sculpted paper without paint to a complete color wash.

Over the last two years I’ve tried several methods for sculpting my paintings. I’m hoping with this piece, I have found a method that suits my abilities, my resources (I’d love to do them all in bronze with patinas for colorization), and my temperament.

Let me know what you think.

Anthony