Tuesday, October 9, 2012

It's Called Sgraffito

"Memory of Pears"
6 x 6 Oil on Gessobord
SOLD

"With My Compliments"
6 x 6 Oil on Gessobord
On Exhibit at Randy Higbee Gallery
The pears were painted on Sunday and the peach with blue bowl on Monday.  I'm so excited about this new approach.  (My only complaint is that they are hard to photograph.) 

I've been doing some research, coming across a word I faintly was familiar with, sgraffito.  It's the Italian word for scratching, and can be as simple as scratching through wet paint to expose the gessoed board underneath...which is what I do.  Here is a link to sgraffito techniques in paint.

Texture has always intrigued me, and appears in my colored pencil, pastel and even fiber art.  So it's no surprise that it has found its way into my oil painting.  I love what the scratching does for edges and providing an atmosphere for the objects to "live" in.  One of my artist friends said it has the feel of a distant memory. I'm all over that!  ;-)

I'm experimenting with white Gessobord, value study underpaintings, and can't wait to try some colored Gessobords and a few other tools to create texture.

The pears sold about 10 minutes after posting them.  That's a new record for speed buying, I believe.


4 comments:

Karla said...

I'm loving this new technique! When you mentioned colored pencils and pastels I realized that that is what these new paintings remind me of. Kind of the best of all worlds.

Debbie said...

Wow! I love all of your sgraffito paintings, what a great technique! So interesting!

Sherry Schmidt said...

These are so gorgeous Cynthia! Those dark backgrounds sets off your scratching so well.

Deborah Younglao, Silk Painter said...

I can see why the pears sold so fast - there's something special about the hazy, dreamy texture you got with that one.