As I explained in my inaugural blog post, I had chosen to use acrylic paints because I hoped to thin them to the consistency of ink and use them to create paintings using the same patterned style I had used in my ink drawings. Now that I was feeling comfortable with acrylics, I decided to give my style a try.
I stumbled upon a photo of Monet's painting Bouquet of Sunflowers. I was intrigued by the painting partly because when I first saw it, I thought it was by Van Gogh. The colors and textures in the painting seemed ideally suited to my style, so I decided to create my own interpretation of it.
My first thought was to name it Not Van Gogh's Sunflowers to poke fun at my initial confusion. However in deference to Monet and to make sure that no one confused my painting with his original (ha!), I decided a more appropriate name was Not Monet's Sunflowers.
I started by painting the patterned sunflowers and leaves.
When I painted the patterned background behind the sunflowers, I thought there needed to be a better blending of the colors. I tried adding a layer of dots of various colors onto the patterns to help blend them, and I really liked the resulting effect. It added an interesting texture to the background while smoothing out the colors and helping the sunflowers pop.
Not only were acrylics allowing me to create colors that ink did not, they also were allowing me to use multiple layers of colors. This combination of varying colors for the base layer, the patterns on the base layer, and finally the dots on top of the patterns is what creates the textures that are the heart of contexturalism.
To highlight the textures of the sunflowers and background, I painted the vase and tablecloth without patterns and dots.
Thus the painting Not Monet's Sunflowers was finished and contexturalism was born!
It was not a Monet, but I was pleased with it. It confirmed that acrylics were the perfect medium for my contextural paintings.
