Flimsy and unstable, but cheap.

During the Christmas/New Year Break I made a start on the biggest painting I’ve attempted. Until now I’ve used small canvases and canvas boards. At times I felt restricted by the size of the canvas which tended to make me strive for more “neatness” and cleanness than I felt capable of achieving.
As a trial I bought some large, cheap cardboard sheets and moved my “studio” away from the dining table to the garage floor.

This trial has probably been inspired to a degree by the work of Ian Fairweather, a recently discovered favourite of mine, who painted on some very flimsy and unstable materials. If it was good enough for him, and the galleries who bought his work – surely cardboard is a good enough medium for a beginner’s trial and error attempts to learn how to paint.

So far I’ve enjoyed the exercise and see its value. It has allowed me a greater freedom at little cost and I haven’t felt the restraint of trying to fit a big idea into a little space. I’ve also felt less need for neatness. Smudges, inconsistencies and crooked lines don’t seem to matter so much on the larger surface. So far the only drawback has been the cardboard’s desire to curl due to the wetness of the paint and, I assume, the atmospheric humidity.

The work in progress is looking very rough, but it is showing me the possibilities and giving me the confidence to invest in more suitable, yet more expensive, materials to create something with more permanence. I can also see the possibility of experimenting with ways of improving the weaknesses of what I’ve done so far, and because the cost has been minimal, I don’t have so much pressure to get it right.