The floating colors process
Thinned oil paints are blended with bronze powders, and sprinkled from brushes onto a tray of slightly thickened water. The dense drops of color spread
out on the water’s surface as if magnified under a microscope lens, echoing the cellular forms of nature. Then paper is laid down and the floating
image is transferred. The process is repeated 10, 20, or 30 times, building up translucent layers of color and texture.
These organic forms — which seem to suggest the bones and blood and veins of the body’s interior — become the underlayers on
which the figurative image is drawn, with charcoal, pastel pencil, pastel, and oil crayon. The transparent layers suggest or reveal those aspects of life that lie beneath the surface.
To watch a work in progress, from floating colors paper to finished painting, click here
[view work-in-progress]
or on image below.
Ferguson creating the underlayers of a painting using the floating colors process
