Life is a banquet!

Experimentation

In 1960 when Jasper Johns sat down to create Grey Alphabets, 1960, he had years of training, experience, confidence and much expertise with lithography, color theory, painting and more!  Me, not so much. 

After a trip to the local artists supply store yesterday I had at my disposal:

• a spiral bound notebook of cold pressed 140 pound watercolor paper
• an alphabet stencil
• waterproof drawing ink in black, grey and violet
• graphite pencils in a variety of weights
• ruler and square
• watercolors
• multiple sizes of paint brushes
• an idea in my head of what I hoped to create

I knew it was going to take a lot of trial and error to create what I've decided to call "After Jasper Johns, 2010" (aka my poor-man's copy of Grey Alphabets, 1960) so I told myself to spend the day becoming familiar with my tools, rather than trying to leap ahead to the end project. 

Ipod-enabled, I spent nearly 3 hours playing with my artist's tools.  I created a 7 x 9 grid of 3x3cm squares.  In each square I stenciled a lowercase letter.  Then using the grey waterproof ink, and the thinnest paintbrush I had, I colored in some of the letters.  After a time I switched to graphite pencils and tried different techniques.  Next I switched inks and tried out violet and then black.  Once the ink dried, I tried washing the paper with watercolors first using shades of grey but then switching to colors to experiment with the interplay between the letters and the different color washes.  I filled the first page of my spiral notebook with lots of experiments.

Some things I want to try in the future:

• Trying the color washes first, then coloring the letters
• Water coloring the letters and inking the background
• Inking the whole grid with different colors
• Exploring how to create the grid lines in a more dynamic way

It was lots of fun, relaxing and even though the work required lots of focus and detail work, it was amazingly energizing! 

Inspiration

On Monday Charles and I hiked down to the National Gallery of Art.  The weather was cold and breezy, but my new wool winter coat and rabbit scarf kept me toasty.  We arrived with no real idea of what we wanted to see or what the current exhibits were on offer because we knew there is always something good to see.

We strode into the building and went straight into an exhibit of Jasper Johns working prints.  This was a selection from the newly acquired 1700+ working and test prints from Jasper Johns himself.  I love these kinds of exhibits because they give insights into the thought processes and experiments that resulted in the final pieces - in this case lithographs. 

I knew the name Jasper Johns but before this exhibit I couldn't have told you what he did.  I've since learned that he came to fame for his painting Flag (inset above).  The exhibit focused on the working and test prints for his many lithographs including After Holbein, Target with Four Faces, Usuyuki, Seasons and more.  I had never seen any of these pieces!  My mind was blown. 

There was one print that I was completely taken with - "Alphabet."  This was part of Johns experimentation for a piece ultimately titled as Grey Alphabets, 1960.  I was transfixed by the pattern repetition of the letters, the shades of grey, the complexity of the piece and its overall rhythm.  It is the kind of picture that I could never tire of looking at and learning its nuances.  There and then I knew I wanted this painting. 

(The small thumbnail image here is a pathetic introduction to this work. I'm almost ashamed to post it. At this resolution it looks like a small sheet of paper with grey smudges all over it.  To even begin to appreciate this 38 3/8 x 27 7/8 inch painting you must view it in large size in a new browser.)

Sadly, the museum didn't have a print for sale in the gift shop.  When I got home I couldn't find it for sale on any online store.  There was only one thing to do. I decided I was going to make one for myself.  Oh yes, I'm going to make my own Grey Alphabets, 1960.