‘I don’t plan paintings in the traditional sense. I often start paintings by making marks, creating painterly problems to solve,’ Christina Pataialii.
Picket fences, rugby posts, cowboy hats, and boxing gloves swirl and float amid patches of layered colour and energetic brush marks in Christina Pataialii’s compositions, that recall her Auckland childhood. Inspired by these mysterious paintings, students created atmospheric artworks. First they learnt how to ‘scumble’ by applying thin layers of paint with energetic visible brush strokes. Then they learnt how to ‘blend’ by gently brushing paint from side to side working down the page intermingling two colours in a seamlessly flat surface. Finally, they learnt how to ‘scraffito’ by scraping into layers of wet paint using a variety of tools such as toothpicks, plastic, and notched wood to create different textured marks. Once their painted surfaces were dry, students cut and collaged them to create lyrical artworks full of intriguing shapes, textures, and colour.
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