‘The Art Forger’, Glazing and Principia Cormorant

‘The Art Forger’ by B.A. Shapiro is a great read about a contemporary woman artist in Boston that gets totally embroiled in an art museum theft and forgery all while trying to get ahead as an artist.  The book really gets core with the difficulty women have in the art world, with the stuff that goes on for the artist within their own studio, and goes into great detail about the painting technique of…..you guessed it…..glazing.

Glazing is a painting technique of applying this, transparent layers of paint on thin, transparent layers of paint….on dry paint, by the way, (meaning a very s-l-o-w process).  Often you wipe some paint off with each layer, allowing the canvas or light under paint to show through creating a radiating, rich color that “smushing” paint just can’t achieve.

Sooner or later, most artists do some glazing.  I am a paint smushed.  I like immediate gratification.  I grew up with Abstract Expressionism, California Figurative, Pop Art…I have things to say and I want to get at it. But, the description of the layers and layers and luminosity had me going.  I am now playing with glazing in the Ghost Flower Series.

Next, I have a student ask how to get the transparent feel of skin in paint….this requires I teach him….glazing.  I am working on glazing myself around the art school and describing it to students and someone else decides she wants to try it for flower pedals.

Last, I am starting a thank you gift for a donation to the art school: I paint a painting of the family pet, in this case stuffed critters, in any style of any artist they choose…..this family chooses Rembrandt.  What does that require….you know it….glazing! And, black glazing at that!

That brings us to “Principia Cormorant”. An adult artist working with me coined the term “Principia Cormorant” for those times when you learn something new and then run into it all over the place right after that.  It had to do with her husband learning about Cormorants (local bird) and then hearing people reference them and actually seeing them repeatedly soon afterwards.

So, todays thought….Glazing is the Art School’s “Principia Cormorant” this week.

–Susan