Painting Large The Beginning of a Seven Foot Abstract

There is something very different about standing in front of a seven-foot canvas.

At 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide, this piece is large enough that I can’t really approach it the same way I would a smaller painting. I have to move around it, stand back from it, come forward again, and continually look at how one area relates to another. At this scale, painting becomes almost physical.

I thought it would be interesting to document this one as it develops rather than waiting until I have a finished painting to show.

Starting With a Blank Canvas

The first stage wasn’t particularly glamorous.

I began with the canvas prepared and covered in a light neutral ground. On something this large, even preparing the surface becomes part of the process. I deliberately left some variation in the ground rather than trying to create a perfectly smooth, uniform white surface.

Those subtle differences in texture and tone give me something to respond to once I begin painting.

And then comes the intimidating part: deciding what to do with seven feet of essentially blank space.

Building the Underpainting

For the first major layer, I concentrated on establishing the structure of the painting rather than worrying about details.

Large areas of blue gray, white, cream and strong yellow began dividing the surface into irregular blocks. Some areas are opaque while others allow previous marks and layers to remain visible.

At this point I am thinking about balance, movement and visual weight.

Where does the eye go?

Is one side becoming too heavy?

Does an area need to be quieter?

Does the painting need another dark passage or an interruption of color?

Working this large makes those relationships especially important. A shape that might be a small accent in another painting can occupy several square feet here.

I also like leaving evidence of the process — brushwork, partially covered areas, uneven edges and places where one layer collides with another. I don't want the surface to become too controlled.

Then the Painting Began to Change

Once the basic structure was established, I started introducing much darker areas.

That changed everything.

The deep charcoal and near-black passages gave the brighter yellows, blues and whites considerably more intensity. Suddenly the painting had a very different rhythm and a much stronger sense of depth.

I began adding smaller blue and yellow blocks, warm copper and rust-colored forms, white shapes, scratched lines, loose drawing and little areas of texture.

Some marks are deliberate.

Others happen because I see something developing and decide to follow it.

That is one of the things I enjoy most about abstraction. I may begin with a general direction, but I don't want to know exactly what the finished painting will look like.

If I already knew that, much of the reason for painting it would disappear.

Where It Is Now

The painting has reached the stage where the original underpainting is still visible, but another visual language is beginning to develop over it.

There are large geometric areas alongside small irregular forms. Hard-edged blocks sit next to loose brushwork. Bright color appears against expanses of charcoal. Fine scratched lines interrupt broad areas of paint.

I particularly like the tension that is developing between the structured rectangular shapes and the more spontaneous organic marks.

But it isn't finished.

There are areas that I already want to preserve and others that I know will probably disappear completely beneath another layer.

That is always one of the difficult parts.

Sometimes the mark you like best has to be sacrificed because the painting as a whole needs something different.

The Challenge of Painting Seven Feet Tall

One thing this painting is reminding me is just how different large-scale work feels.

You can't really judge a seven-foot painting from eighteen inches away.

I repeatedly walk away from it.

Sometimes I photograph it simply because seeing the painting reduced to the size of a phone screen reveals compositional problems that aren't nearly as obvious when I'm standing directly in front of it.

Then I walk back over and change something.

And then I stand back again.

It becomes a continual conversation between mark making and looking.

Perhaps that is what I enjoy most about working this way. I am not simply filling in a predetermined composition. I am responding to what happened during the previous stage.

Still in Progress

For now, this is where the painting stands.

It began as a prepared seven-foot canvas, moved through a loose blue, yellow, gray and white underpainting, and is now becoming a much more layered composition of charcoal, color, line, texture and irregular forms.

I have no idea how many of the marks visible today will survive to the finished painting.

And I think that's part of the fun.

I'll continue photographing it as it changes. Eventually I'll be able to put the first photograph beside the last and see just how far this enormous canvas traveled between blank surface and finished abstract.

To be continued.