SELMA
36 x 36 in.
2022
Acrylic paint on canvas.
Selma, Alabama, the city is best known for the 1960s civil rights movement and the Selma to Montgomery marches, beginning with "Bloody Sunday" in 1965 and ending with 25,000 people entering Montgomery at the end of the last march to press for voting rights. This activism generated national attention for social justice and that summer, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by Congress to authorize federal oversight and enforcement of the constitutional rights of all American citizens.
Canvases are all primed and painted with an undercoat so they all have continuity in this series even though they are each a different subject matter.
Let's go! I was setting up a new canvas and getting ready for the first painting in the Hues of Freedom series for the show.
Jumping right in and blocking out a historic scene. The first part of a new painting for me is just finding the edges.
Here is a close-up of some of the detail.
Base colors are being blocked in slowly to create balance. For this series, I wanted to use non-traditional colors to give things a little more modern feel.
When I begin a painting, I often block in color with fluid paint, making it easy to get color into many areas without much mixing. As I finish the work I will go back many times and add additional layers with heavy viscosity acrylic.
The detail is really starting to come together. My painting reference is a lot of old black and white news photos from the 60s.
What you don't see in this photo set is that I am working on all 4 pieces at once. The reason for this is so that I don't over-finish one piece which would look different from the rest.
I have a very specific color palette for each of the 4 paintings I am working on for this series. There is a little crossover in a few colors to bring cohesion, but not enough to make them look the same.
Here's a little closer look at the still largely unfinished work. My intention with this style is to capture the essence of what each of these moments in time was. I don't want to make a photo-realistic painting.
Making some strides in finishing this piece with more detail and color balance.
Progress is made little by little. Laying down some highlights.
Here is one final detailed shot of this painting.
More progress in texture, color, and detail. Okay, let's see what comes next.
