Lab Book #14, Part 1: The Lion Tamer (Three Ringed Flying Circus on Wheels)

 

The concept behind Lab Book #14, is to have a group of paintings centered around the theme of a (surrealistic) circus, with the drawings based on lab notes from 2006-2007. Referring to an earlier painting I did of the same title, "Three Wheeled Flying Circus on Wheels" is the name for the entire group of paintings. In "Pt 1. The Lion Tamer", an alien-like golden beast is under the whip of a new-age character airing out her armpit while a crowd of ghosts looks on. In the background a sports car sits behind a pillar which goes up and off the picture plane. The scene is set inside of a circus tent (a door opens up to the blue sky on the left) that has the appearance of an underground cavern. 

I chose to use hot press paper for this series, just to mix things up a bit and see what is really different about this type of paper. I almost always used cold press, which is rougher and does not absorb paint as readily, which allows you to flow the colours together and creates some random shapes and patterns that often add to the texture and energy of the work. With hot press paper, the paint seems to get absorbed quickly, making it difficult to make colours flow together or create any randomness. Overall, the hot press allows a greater degree of control over what you do, which seems to suit the doodle style quite well. I have finished the drawing part of the next installment, "Pt.2 the Tight Rope Walker", and will start to fill in the colours soon. 

Lab Book #14, Part 1 The Lion Tamer: watercolour 12 x 16", hot press, 2008 (No. 1800)