Day 21 - No title yet.
11" x 11" - Acrylic on paper
Marks with Black acrylic paint applied with brush, fingers and marker. Teal and Red under paintings. Black, White, Red and Teal to finish using brush and palette knife.
I think this one is finished; thinking about a title.
Hi Karolyn, this painting takes me outdoors into a snowscape. Love all the tracks to decipher—humans, rabbits, mice, a kid dragging a twig?
ReplyDeleteHow do you go about titling your pieces?
I dreamt last night about taking a start I have that's already got color covering it, and covering it to do a mostly black & white. Today could be the day!
Hi Dotty, I hope you are having fun with black and white!
DeleteI generally choose a title that will help me remember the painting. I tried numbering for a while last year and it was way too confusing to me. I also am not fond of using "Untitled". Two years ago I used song titles as I was painting to music.
How do you choose a title?
DeleteAt some point en route in the process of a painting—could be part way through, could be once the piece is completed—a feeling or idea is evoked and bubbles up to the surface. I give words to the feeling/idea and then listen to the way the words sound, aiming to find something that fits the spirit of the painting or the mood while I was painting it, and something that passes muster with the wordsmith in me.
DeleteWell, that all sounds pretty vague, doesn't it?! I'll give you three concrete examples from my paintings this month.
Day 7 is a completely abstract painting that evolved organically and intuitively. When finished, it brought to mind a park/playground in a big city. I fiddled with banal phrases such as City Park and the like until I connected with the years I lived in London and thought of Kensington Gardens. That became the title.
Day 11 is also completely abstract, also evolved organically and intuitively. It had a landscape feel to it and the lower portion reminded me of reading about rabbit warrens in Watership Down. Also noting the sky color in the painting, I titled that piece Watership Down Dusk.
Day 12 also abstract. Brought to mind a beacon or floodlight, and reminded me of walking to and from the Point at Takodah for opening campfire each year at family camp. We shine our flashlights to find our way back through the woods to our cabins afterwards. That in turn made me think of Jen Walls's using the musical "Into the Woods" as her theme for this month's challenge, so I went poking through lyrics from that show and came up with the title Never Can Tell What Lies Ahead.