Remember this is all pretty "experimental" at this stage. These have been just totally "fun" and pure "escapism". Remember "retsu" translates sort of "things collected in a line" or a series. Wabi-Sabi more referring to "imperfect beauty".
The way I am "planning" on displaying this particular ensemble..is with mat medium glued to a primed, gallery-wrapped canvas. I have laid them out on the canvas here to you can sort of see how that might look. I plan to leave the spaces between the tiles. Just interesting eye-jumps.
I primed the canvas last night with a coat of Cheap Joe's EXTRA special white gesso and sanded it smooth. And I have lightly sprayed all the tiles with a light coating of clear acrylic to set the graphite shading. Now comes the experimental part. Part III.
I will coat the canvas with clear gel medium and put the tiles on top of the medium using it for "bonding". The ticket here is to try hard to get the tiles to glue down flat (on a flexible canvas backing). I have stuffed the inside of the wrapped canvas with newspaper to help keep it "braced" because I am going to have to lay some heavy books on top of the tiles to keep them from curling.
IF this works, I'll finish it up by coating everything with at least one more coat of mat (or gloss) medium to completely seal the piece. If it doesn't work...well then next time I'll frame them under glass...a kind of boring option. But more secure. Cross your fingers. More later.
Tomorrow I start a watercolor sketching class with Brenda Swenson at Dillman's. Lucky me!!! Photos to follow.
Dear Ginny - I think this such a striking piece. I will keep my fingers crossed that the medium will work to secure the tiles to the canvas. Good luck with your class at Dillman's.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really nice piece. Have you thought about making the background canvas a color other than white to set off the tiles? This project gives me some ideas - thanks!
ReplyDelete