Ahhh, Krugman, Volume 2

I'm painting Are You People Insane?/The Annotated Paul before I paint The Annotated Krugman. The thinking being this: There's a limited number of 4'x5' stretched, primed canvases in the world, and an even smaller number in my studio.

That's a fact. Now consider this: There's a high probability that the experimental technique called, here, "A/B/A/B" is going to be a complete failure. Not that I'm daunted by that, but it's a fact. For those of you not familiar with the general idea behind A/B/A/B, consider this post from July 1, 1010:

Okay...let's get serious.

Let's assume, for purposes of this discussion, that people's faces are roughly symmetrical. That is to say that, when vertically bisected, each half contains a nostril, an eye, half a mouth, an ear, some hair, etc.

Now let's further assume that we are trying to embrace the spirit of Andy Warhol, at least in terms of generating multiple images.

Now let's think of a stretched, primed 4'x5' canvas lying on the floor with the charcoal sketch of, say, Rand Paul, already executed on its surface. Next to it is a second canvas of identical proportions, without the sketch. In your hand you hold a can of paint and a paint stick. You begin painting.

Shortly after, while every bit of the paint is still wet, you stop.

Then, carefully, you (and your assistant) lay the second canvas--let's call it Canvas B atop the now-painted Canvas A, so they are aligned, face to face if you will. You then take some kind of a roller and roll the two surfaces together, thus transferring, likely in an imperfect manner, the image from Canvas A to the surface of Canvas B.

Lord have mercy, you find yourself mumbling under your breath.

Once rolled, you separate the canvases. Lo and behold, they are, on some level, mirror images of their respective others, although the paint transfer to Canvas B is likely imperfect--perhaps 50-80% of Canvas A. Remain calm--that's fine.

You let them dry. Then you take Canvas B and lay it on the floor. You continue the painting with a second application of paint. Once done, you repeat the directions found in paragraph 5 above. You continue til the canvases are some version of complete. You then finish each in the manner that suits you. When you are done, you have two canvases with images of Rand Paul (that putz), similar in a number of ways but tantalizingly different as well.

Lord have mercy, you find yourself mumbling under your breath.

The concern is this: What happens when you put canvas A on top of canvas B and press down. My worry is that the lines will smush out too much and become unrecognizable. Or they won't smush enough and canvas B will be illegible (which is actually a solveable problem, but still...).

So the thinking is this: Why not try it out with two beautiful canvases and see if it works. Then, if it doesn't, I can just paint Krugman over top of one of them and voila: "The Annotated Krugman (Are You People Insane?)" --which is a great title.

The Paul picture I'll be working from is this:



Which should make a nice pair of paintings.