Illusion

Five hundred years after Michelangelo was perfecting his technique with lime, pigments and water I have my pick of many different paints to use. In 2010 there are paint stores for house painters and there are arts and craft stores that all present us with numerous amounts of materials. I personally get a little overwhelmed by seeing all that is offered. In the regular house paint stores you can find high and low quality brands for in door and outdoor use, there is latex which is pigments mixed in with water and there are oil based enamels which are pigments mixed with oil and solvents. In the art stores there are acrylics which are water based highly pigmented paints and oil paints for use on canvas. There is gouache which is a chalk-like opaque paint and tempera which is a little bit the same.

              I had to narrow it down in order to use the best of each in what I want to achieve in my mural. The mural has not only an outrageous perspective by depicting people in life size reality but also on the same surface an aerial perspective. No single human eye can see this perspective in reality. Simply impossible. To achieve this depth requires different means in order to create this feeling of spaciousness. The wall is flat after all and it will stay flat. A photograph is flat; two dimensional. This is also because of the use of the same material through out the surface. With print you can already achieve a slight sense of depth by using a flat opaque ink and a transparent glossy ink on top. In paint you can give the illusion of depth in different ways. It is still an illusion but I think you can only do it in paint.

              Artists throughout the ages realized by looking intensely at nature how to create depth in a painting. When there is a little fog you can feel a heightened sense of depth. The blue and white in the far distance creates this. Also the lack of contrast far away, a slightly blurry vision is required to let the viewer’s eye roll over details far away and focus on the foreground. The foreground needs to have everything the far distance does not have. It needs energy and movement, composed from bright colors, reds, oranges, vivid images in high contrast. Sharp edges will make the eye focus on whatever is happening there. The biggest difference between dark and light is in the foreground.

               That all said it seems easy to achieve this. It is just a simple trick and when you follow the rules you will achieve your goal. There is more to it though. The distance is well suited with opaque paints. Using acrylics for the whole mural would be frustrating because they stay transparent and the brushstrokes visible. White in every kind of artistic paint has a tendency to make any color opaque. Mix white in it and the surface becomes flat. The colors mixed with white give this sense of quiet surrender and it creates a beautiful balance with other more vivid parts.

I used for an optimum in depth illusion of the edge of the world an inexpensive Sherwin Williams Ceiling paint. This chalky paint gives the surface a dull look, almost like suede. On top of it in the sky I used pure pigment powder mixed with water and binder. The middle ground is fully painted with the Pittsburgh which I bought in bright colors so I am able to mix them at my convenience. On top of this paint I will add very thin layers of acrylic to make the transition between the foreground and the distance. Close-up will have either an eggshell or shiny acrylic paint on a super flat surface. The surface needs to be doubly prepared without any flaws: drippings, cracks or other irregularities.

People ask me about varnish. We are used to varnishing pieces of art to preserve them for eternity. If it were an outdoor piece I would do this to protect the painting from mildew and ultraviolet rays. The mural at the Alumni Building will not have a coat of varnish higher than the life size images. That layer of varnish will protect it from sticky fingers and coincidental bumps. The rest will stay as is because the dull quality of the paint in the distance serves to add to the illusion of depth. If the rules were not too strict I would add some high quality oil paint to the people in the foreground because oil provides such brilliant colors that simply aren’t the same with acrylics. Water based paint on top of oil paint would allow the painting to easily chip, and take with it the characters I have tried so hard to capture.

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