Didn’t paint drip in the 15th century? It must have. Even egg tempera must have gotten runny sometimes. But dripping paint was a no-no til the end of the 19th century. Unthinkable; what a disgrace; quick, clean it up and let no one see how paint behaves. In the 20th century paint was finally allowed to behave like paint.
If you’re not a painter you may think this is easy. How hard can it be to splash paint on a piece of cloth, you say!
If you’re a contemporary painter and you have never let paint drip, hmm, that may be because you haven’t been able to. Maybe allowing paint to drip is like yoga: you stretch and it’s uncomfortable at first.
As the instructor in the “Mondrian Class” I get ecstatic—ooh, ahh—when someone first ventures into drip mode. It just happens. As with yoga, I think it’s accompanied by an exhalation of all sorts of thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots.
The above painting was produced in two class periods. The student, Pamela Habel, has only been with us for one semester.
In her previous painting, left, we can see her warming up to the idea of allowing the paint to drip.
Pamela Habel, acrylic on canvas, each painting 40” x 30”
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artamaze by Katherine Hilden 