Of the many water-based painting techniques that I explored before settling on my current time consuming, anxiety producing, laborious process, tempera batik was the most fun. Not worrying about light-fastness of pigment, durability of surface, or acid-free pulp was liberating. I could pull a piece of paper outta the copy machine, whip out some crusty old dollar-a-bottle Crayola craft paint, and totally mess about. But, being me, I had to meddle with it. I wondered how the process would work on different surfaces and if there was a way to make a finished piece out-live me. I mixed dyes and paints, and used markers, crayons, and colored pencils, with each experiment producing a new result in texture and color.

I'm sure that if you look carefully at paintings posted on my website you can see the transitions, and probably group the work by the subtle shifts in materials. Pieces like Despite Considerable Effort, Reality Gets the Upper Hand are from the tempera batik stage of my process. I had figured out that 140 lb acid free cotton rag paper could take the punishment of washing the top coat, and placing tempera paint under conservation glass, or plexi, preserved the hue. I loved the bright spontaneity of pieces like this, but they didn't capture the intellectual weight of the content as I experienced it. So, I kept noodling about until I came to what I do now.

There aren't many of these early experiments left, and I don't exhibit them very often because they're so different from what I currently make. But, for a few weeks, they'll be at Ghostwolf Gallery so I can ponder how to integrate my favorite parts into my future work.