Dennis Hollingsworth

Vermillion

Wow.

That was a marathon.

After a scrape off, I mixed the discarded paint into a grey, and it was not a bad shade and tint.

What was I trying to do? I think I was trying too many schemas at once... or in succession. I wanted a congested field; and I wanted a clarity of form; then the overhand throws of brown scattered into forms that were different in character than what I had anticipated, not plump; and I wanted a focus on a center too; but the blue flicks of blue thin lariats were too dark; and the light green stomps were to be a field of flowers like that Rivera painting; but then I couldn't see them that well, the light background wouldn't set them off; then, a screed of black to solve the problem; and each move took me farther away...

... aaarrrrrgggghhh!


After recharging my battery, I went into it again.

I had this immense grey mound.
That would make a good base, an undercoat.
I had many tubes of Vermillion and Cadmium Red.
And there was this favored painting hanging nearby...

I didn't want to copy it, but I wanted to take certain qualities of it and emphasize them. The black brushstrokes tracking across the canvas. The vertical dotting of monads in ochre and red that get smeared into the brushstrokes. Nervous lines of paint tapped, snapped ont the surface. The pounding stomps white, red and black, knitting the fabric of it all. A major knife of red that cuts and buldoses a flat plane from top to bottom. Then, a few more stomps that stitch that back into the field, red and white. 34 hours later: