Rutting Stags 2016 Acrylic and mixed media on A2 mount board.
So this is my rutting stags painting! It started out as an experimental texture piece and turned into something i'm really happy with. I was stuck in a rut with my art work so I decided to do something completely different to stimulate new ideas for my work. This then snowballed and I ended up continuing this style for my final major project at uni.
So the process?
To create the base texture I watered down some primer, spread it across the whole surface and then laid clingfilm over it and scrunched it to make wrinkles in the primer. I left it to dry for a day and then pealed the clingfilm off to reveal slight bumps and patters.
I collected natural material from the garden such as crumpled leaves and grass, mixed it with some watery primer and pasted it on top of the base texture in places I wanted more textural emphasis.
Next was the background colour! I watered down my chosen acrylic paint and covered the background once the primer was dry. I used metallic paints to highlight the raised points on the surface to stress the roughness within the piece.
Finally, I penciled on the outline of the stags and painted them!
I wanted to keep the colour scheme natural to reflect the environment, materials and mood within the painting. I love the energy that the texture produces, it helps to show the friction between the two competing males.
This whole process sparked the idea for an entire project based around native wildlife and conservation issues called 'Trace'. There will be another blog post on this! Stay Tuned!
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