Room Temperature Art: Christmas presents 2012

I made these for my family as Christmas presents. Since they all live 1,800 miles away, getting them there was tricky. I painted all the canvases at home in Scottsdale, rolled them up in large poster tubes and checked them as luggage on the plane. I had the stretcher bars delivered to my parents' house and then stretched the canvas in Columbus. It took a couple of days, but was definitely worth it. I used Gallery Pro stretcher bars, and was happy with the price and wood quality - out of the 28 bars, none were broken or warped.

I wanted there to be a recurring theme for all of them, but for each one to also have its own individuality. The theme I used was the Rorschach inkblots. The idea behind the Rorschach inkblot test is to show an image which may or may not suggest a particular picture or idea, and then let the subject you are evaluating tell you what they see or what feelings they have as a result of looking at the inkblot.

The Rorschach inkblots are all symmetric about a vertical axis, so I used this feature in the paintings. Also, I used only a light coating of white paint and water (instead of gesso) to try to maintain a parchment-type feel to the raw canvas. In order to imitate ink, I heavily-diluted the acrylic paint and pressed it hard into the canvas, ensuring that there was no thickness to the end result.

I have specific titles for these, but if I said what they were, it would defeat the purpose, right?

For Mike and Emma