I want to show you a painting I'm particularly proud of, now I explain why. It is a biombo, wallpanel, that I painted for Azultierra, a shop, decoration studio in Barcelona.
The fact is that, apart from the affection used, as in all my works, apart from the large size of this, the challenge was to make the painting look like a work painted centuries ago, elegantly aged by time.
The reason, the elements that would form it were clear, a landscape painted with a European orientalist touch. For this I was inspired by classic tapestries 17th century, 18th-style verdure. They are tapestries where the green dominates but in the form of landscape, nature, perhaps some figure or architectural detail. Then came the whole process to age the work.
For this I had to perform several techniques to give that realism, to make it look really damaged by time: sanding, veiling, I played with thicknesses in the density of the painting, and finally what ended up perfectly fitting was the cracking technique.
This technique is done by a combination of varnishes and drying that causes the work to crack, small lines are formed that draw that quartet above the painting giving a sense of deterioration over time. It is a delicate process, it has its trick, and if time, drying, and even the direction of the palette are not respected when you apply these varnishes, you can ruin the painting.
I'll show you a close-seen detail so you can see how it's done. You will say if it really looks like a work painted centuries ago. In another post, I explain how it's done...
