Emerging Surfaces #2

Here's a cool time lapse video of me making "Emerging Surfaces #2". I don't have a professional photo of the finished piece yet but I'll post it later. For this sculptural painting, I cut up some faux wood blinds (the kind for windows) using a miter saw, and then sanded all the edges. Then I built the panel surface and stretched canvas over that...and then a series of applying gesso...then sanding...then more gesso. Next I played with various compositions to get an idea of how I wanted to build up the layers and finally started adhering the squares to the panel using get medium. In between some of the layers I sewed in thin pieces of metal. By doing it this way they kind of "float" between the squares. I think this was the hardest part. I had to use clamps and try to keep the thread the same length all around so the metal would be evenly placed in the middle of the squares. When everything was glued in place, I used a sand textured paint to cover everything...twice. Then I used a needle to loosen the sand around the threaded areas. Then I sprayed the piece with black spray paint. This sealed in the sand texture and prepared the surface for the acrylic paint. I used several colors of acrylic paint to achieve the look of old tiles and finally, I sprayed the whole thing with a clear varnish to really set it and seal it.