Hi, all. Hope you’re doing well. Spring is literally just around the corner, with the Vernal Equinox next Tuesday, March 19. I’m very excited about it because it’s been a windy late winter here in lovely Massachusetts, and I live and work in a creaky, old, 1870s triple-decker. Locals will know what that means. I am tired of being cold. Granted, we could have a freeze as late as May because New England, but I cling to the straws I find.
I have two new paintings to share. Behold!
These are both views from my studio window, originally sketched on the same day, at about 11:00 AM. They will be added to the Artrepreneur shop shortly.
They’re also both experiments in mounting watercolors on canvas. Painting watercolor on canvas is tricky. You have to treat the canvas with a specially mixed primer, called watercolor ground, but honestly, I don’t love it. I like my work to look and even feel a certain way, and watercolor ground is just not the surface texture I want. Plus, watercolor on ground is fragile. For me personally, it’s a lot of prep work for a substrate that’s not very stable, for a medium meant for a different surface. Many artists do amazing things with it, but it’s not my resonance.
But then I had one of my “Hey, wait a minute, Jen” thoughts. Don’t I build collages on canvas all the time?, I said to myself. Why yes, I do, now that you mention it, I said back to myself. So why don’t I mount some paper on some canvas and then paint on it? Duh!
So I’ve been experimenting.
Wind and Clouds with Gull is watercolor, gansai, pastel, pencils, and collage on rice paper on canvas.
Dogwood Buds with Junco is watercolor, gansai, pastel and ink on drawing paper on canvas.
More experiments are upcoming with other papers and media. I think this is going to be a regular thing. I really like it. The wheat paste I make for collage shrinks in drying, tightening up the canvas like a drum. Maybe I’ll make a video of it, so you can hear it. It results in a gorgeously flat surface with no buckling or cockling, and a finished work that’s ready to frame and hang. I can’t think why I never thought to use this for painting and drawing before. Silly me.
Anyway, that was the first big breakthrough of 2024.
I suppose the fact that they are paintings is kind of also a breakthrough. Collage is and always will be the most direct glimpse into how my brain works, but there’s actually a practical problem-solving reason why I am doing more mark-making work. I’ll write about that in future.
Other practical problems that need solving are being addressed this year as well. Watch this space for adjustments to the Newsletter and the Patreon, both of which will continue to be free, so you should totally sign up for them. There will also be new ways to acquire original, bespoke, Jen Fries artworks of your very own, so brace for joy on that front.
An Alchemy of Dragons will be undergoing some renovations, too. It turns out that writing a serialized novel is kind of like producing a reality series about a fictional series in which the characters build a suspension bridge, for which you actually build a suspension bridge. I’m bringing in co-protagonist Iarius Venzo as well as at least one subplot, and I’ve been quite literally at the engineering drawing board, because, you know, you can’t just do the thing. You can’t just sploop it out onto the internet. You have to build, design, construct – like a collage. Or a Werner Herzog movie.
I’ll write about that process in the near future, too.
Anyway… Spring!
-Jen
Jen Fries Arts 