When I began working on this painting I knew it was going to be something new, a new technique must apply.
For ages I’ve been seeing the work of some pavement artists rendered in chalk (attached as a Word document or on one of those ’10 amazing…’ sites). All the works have to be made stretched to accommodate the point of view, or plane distortion.
Making the floor seem to become another surface or even vanish completely.
The brief was ‘East meets West’. I researched tallships, the tea-routes and the shipping life. A tallship would take over 3 months to sail from Shanghai to London, traveling around the South of Africa. They would bring with them exotic spices and produce from the far east. The annual supplies of tea for the whole of the British Isles was brought in one haul.
Plane distortion requires that knowing the final surface to paint on is paramount, so i played with the concept of using bridges, as both a means of transport and communion. I created a scene in Google Sketchup, to economise on the possibility of not knowing the surface I was going to paint. I could always change the camera angle to suit.
Then it was just a simple case of painting freestyle, with only the digital concept in mind, working with the location and the paint.
And the rain.
There’s also a video coming soon, keep your eyes peeled on this
Below is the 360 panorama taken while the final photography of the work was going ahead, the painting is slightly obscured by equipment but it shows you where the floor and walls actually are.
