Buddha in Progress: Brett’s current large painting

I start with an old, recycled door from the salvage yard.

I sand off the old paint and fill the door knob handles. Here is the door in my studio.

Usually, I work with a blank background when making these pieces. This time, I wanted to create more of a marriage between East and West, between textile and paint. So I decide to use Indian textile design for the background. I have several Indian textile wood blocks, so I choose two and create a background. Here are some of my Indian textile blocks.

Here, you can see a zoomed-in shot of the textile design I created using the Indian wood blocks.

Here is my first sketch of the Buddha head. There is a problem!

As I look at the pencil sketch, I realize that the Buddha figure is placed too far to the right. I wanted the figure to be off-center, however, this seems too off-centered to me and I don’t like the way the hand became the centralized focal point. So, I painted over the figure and started again.

Here’s a close- up view of the Buddha head in the wrong place!

After I re-place the figure, I lay the painting flat and draw the quilt grid lines in red. I use two different colors (the black pencil for the image and the red for the grid) so that I don’t become confused.

Here, you can see the over-painted first sketch, the new pencil sketch of the figure, and the red quilt grid lines.

Painting begins. I begin with a layer of red, carefully controlling the values. For this painting, I’m using a six-step value system. I work from the darkest values and move to the lightest reds. I will paint the entire piece in red, cover this with a protective clear layer, and then move on to the next color layer, again covering the entire piece with color. This will continue until the last color layer is complete, so I paint this painting 5- 6 times! Here is one completed darkest red grid square (value 6) and a partially completed value 5 grid square.

Here again, you can see two completed value 6 red grid squares and 2 partially completed value 5 red squares.

Painting continues.

The completed red layer. The painting will need to dry for 3 days, after which a clear protective layer will be added and the second color layer can begin.

A close-up view of the Buddha face.

Here is the “finished” work. After the red layer, I painted the entire piece blue and then in purples/violets. I finished with the top, green layer. You can see I have begun to abrade the surface so that the underlying blue, violet, and red layers begin to re-surface in certain areas. The piece is not yet dry enough to continue with abrasion (it is monsoon season here and very rainy and humid). After 2 weeks, I will continue abrading and perhaps add gold leaf to specific areas of the piece.

Here is a close-up of the face. You can see the abrasion beginning on the left eye, the right cheek, hair, the background, and the hand. I do this in order to speak about the nature of the materials. I start with an old, unwanted door. I re- surface and paint it, making it “new” again. I then want to age the piece, making it again seem old, yet no longer unwanted. I also like the idea of showing my ability to control the value of the color layers. No matter what color is showing, the image still makes sense because the values are all the same.

Other close- ups This is the piece laying flat. It lies flat in order for me to abrade (sand) the layers off.