Alyssa Monks
Explain your process from start to finish. I get an idea or a picture in my head. Sometimes it’s a color, a texture, an environment or atmosphere. Then I try to figure out how to set it up. I create a sort of stage setting and experiment with lighting, colors and models. Lately it’s been showers, bathtubs, water, oil, steam and glass. I experiment and photograph the situation from many angles and positions. The model moves about freely and I snap thousands of pictures until the model is tired or her skin is pruned. Sometimes I’m the model and I use a remote or have someone shooting me. From there I go through my pictures for a few weeks to see if I get any ideas from them or can make them into anything. I spend time composing an image digitally and then experiment with color. Then I prepare the canvas and map out the image loosely, cover it with a transparent wash of a warm color (usually an ochre) and let it dry. I paint very directly to start, mixing big piles of color as I go. I like to create the palette as close to the photograph as I can at first, to create the color relationships, but this changes and adjusts as the layers progress. Once I get the first loose layer down, I can see the image coming into focus. Then I can let go of the photograph and begin to play with the paint to create the effects that I find interesting. Lately it’s been creating the illusion of steam or water droplets that are believable from a distance but also very clearly paint strokes and dabs. I’m more excited about the paint looking like paint lately, than it tightly describing something else. I will often take a stroke off with a knife if it’s not the right stroke, and then try it again. I try not to upset the freshness of the paint after the initial stroke, keeping the immediacy of the moment intact and not too fussy or precious. In subsequent layers I work a bit more transparently and can adjust color, value, and details as needed. I still try not to overwork the paint, but I like to complicate the surface to the point of not knowing what is on top of what. I like studying the surfaces of paintings and trying to figure out all the strokes that made up the surface. I love what James Elkins says in his book What Painting Is about the final surface of a painting being a record of all these specific decisions and movements made against the canvas over time. That is something I feel like only painting can do.
Alyssa Monks Swipe 2012 11x16 oil on panel
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118