Finished weathered work

 

The weathered piece is finally finished!
It's been a frustrating process at times, but I'm happy to have finally finished it, and I'm happy with the results. I'm planning a similar piece, and I think it's likely to get done more quickly seeing as it's now autumn and the weather should be more tempestuous than it was in early September when I started this.
In this piece I've also used embroidery to pick out some of the background colour blocks, as I like some of the strong shapes there. I'm also really happy with the intensity coming from the hanging threads being concentrated in a particular area.
This concept is definitely something I want to push further and experiment more with. I'm hoping to exhibit this, and others works made in this way, early next year.

Today I'm planning to get started on a second piece in this style. However, there will be a couple of differences. To push the idea of being weathered and damaged by life experiences a bit further, the next piece will be a portrait of myself as a child. My mother has kindly sent me some photos to work with.
Additionally I'm going to move away from using continuous line drawings. Instead I'm planning to use drawings inspired by Frank Auerbach. I saw his show at Marlborough on Friday, and found it really inspirational. Since then I've been experimenting with some sketches in his style. I'm planning to build layering up in the work with sketches in charcoal and chalk, and I'm interested to see how this will be affected by natural weathering, even after being fixed.