Red Dress 3

The Red Dress Process --Lynette Hensley

	July 12 -- I'm wondering how I'm going to do the theatre aspect of this painting now. I love DS Burnt Umber gesso. I'm thinking about edge issues now. The canvas is one that needs no frame--it's about 2" deep and the canvas wraps around. I've painted Burnt Umber Gesso around the entire perimeter. I'm not going to wrap the picture over the edge. Maybe lettering or a design or both. What about dimensional lettering? I don't want this to be about surface decoration though, so that could distract. I still have my 2 dimensional art teacher's voice ringing in my ears, saying, "Be more clever!....No--MORE clever!" This is a useful mantra perhaps, but my head shouts back--HOW do I be more clever? I'm liking this dark background, but I have the feeling it won't stay dark.
	I love DS Venetian Red gesso. So now it's becoming a good living room picture, but I still want it to be more than decor. What about my artist statement? How can I get this to be about the theatre? This could be a wonderful painting without the collage elements--the characters that I had pinned to the canvas. They are now feeling like they don't belong. They are stiff and formal--from the Georgian period, and this is a fluid picture. Shall I go Art Nouveau? If the characters are there, then it's about relationships, and needs a theatre set. Time for some visual research. (Below) Maybe with fewer characters I can keep the focus on the main person.
	Maybe I need different characters--more fluid. The collage begins. I've added some patterned red and gold tissue wrapping paper. I know she needs hair. Peggy Ashcroft regarding Subtext: (It's one of my favorite things about theatre acting.) She says, "What is said is, of course, important- but what is unsaid, what we call the sub-text is more important. The Characters reveal themselves indirectly, but they are completely there to be revealed - layer by layer." I hope that this is true of my art as well-that there are layers, but that what is said is revealed layer by layer.
Visual research
	If I use the characters or any characters in the back, then I'm thinking they need to be in a theatre setting. This is becoming a problem for me, since a theater set is by nature a focal point. I want the focal point to be the woman. I'm not really frustrated, but I'm kind of at a loss to what should replace this idea. I could do lots and lots of characters--stacked one on the other with no perspective--just glued on. These are all great designs--pieces of any of these could be incorporated into this painting. I'm wondering if it's getting too busy. It's certainly busy in my head.

OK. Time to think. It's the same process that I used when I was designing costumes. Sometimes it just flows--and then I refer to lots of pictures to get to the next step. I pick out parts of the design from this picture or that one.

So far so good.
Time for a break.
I know folks are watching--this is making me work harder. It's not intimidating because I've asked for no feedback yet, and there's still a distance. Nobody's coming to the studio. This has allowed me the freedom to be myself, and think the way I think. It feels a little like performance art.

OK now here's an idea I like that might work. I was a costume designer. If the painting is called the red dress--well then why isn't the painting essentially a costume design rendering? I can still have collaged elements, and writing-- like the specs and the quote and measurements, and the character name, play, director, costume designer (me) and collage on the reference pictures and the swatches. A painting with some of the qualities of a rendering.

I pass that idea by Katherine (My kid). She likes it. She likes it much better than the other idea with the theatre set. It passes the "duh, of course" test!

This is SO me. --This is a very natural solution to the problem that came up today.