vance kirkland’s dots!!!. vance kirkland american painter, 1904-1981 dots - dots and more dots

Vance Kirkland’s Dots!!!

Vance KirklandAmerican Painter,

1904-1981 Dots - Dots and more dots

His earliest dotted paintings of 1963-66 were created by dropping small amounts of paint from various distances so they would spread to form

imperfect circles.He flung his paint in such a way that it splattered to form discs of color.

The artist himself called his work discs or circles, but he accepted the word dots to describe his paintings.

Kirkland was only 5'3" and his paintings were so large that he could not reach the center of the paintings from the sides of his worktable. So he suspended himself above.

The techniques he developed required his canvas to be laid flat on a table top so that he, and not gravity, could control the flow of the paint.

Kirkland floated mixtures of oil paint & water to onto the canvas ~ then added dots of different sizes and colors meticulously on

the painting using wooden dowels

Close Up…

Enlarged area of- Blue mysteries near the sun ~ 1976

Examples of the size of his canvases

1974 -Celestial Mysteries

Kirkland at age 76

Final painting- Kirkland died the next year- 1981

"The Dot Paintings"/Energy in Space Abstractions 1980

Student Examples….

Dots Project• Students will paint background on heavy paper or canvas paper. May be solid

or patterned. • While paint is drying- students will sand their tools. Score bamboo skewers

(sold in kitchen ware departments) with scissors- then snap them apart. Students need to sand the ends. You can use various diameters of wooden dowels –cut to 3 inch (2.5 cm) lengths- and have them sanded.

• Take a large card board box and place painted paper inside. Mix paint to heavy cream consistency and with a large paint brush, water color brushes are the best, (they hold more paint) splatter paint on background. Carefully remove.

• Put different colors into little containers. Start dotting creating form and lines. • This painting project is made up of little dots with large dots only for accents.

Dots must be tight and close together to create form and lines. • Color scheme and values add expressive lines and emphasis.