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    Helen Frankenthaler and The Soak-Stain Technique

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    Helen Frankenthaler developed the soak-stain technique in 1952 for her painting "Mountains and Sea". She thinned oil paint with turpentine so it would soak into raw, unprimed canvas laid on the floor, creating a translucent effect. This technique emphasized the flatness of the painting while conveying a sense of space. It influenced other artists and launched the Color Field movement. Later, Frankenthaler switched to acrylic paints which gave her more control while avoiding the archival issues of oils degrading the canvas over time.

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    Helen Frankenthaler and The Soak-Stain Technique

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    CP
    169 views1 page
    Helen Frankenthaler developed the soak-stain technique in 1952 for her painting "Mountains and Sea". She thinned oil paint with turpentine so it would soak into raw, unprimed canvas laid on the floor, creating a translucent effect. This technique emphasized the flatness of the painting while conveying a sense of space. It influenced other artists and launched the Color Field movement. Later, Frankenthaler switched to acrylic paints which gave her more control while avoiding the archival issues of oils degrading the canvas over time.

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    Helen Frankenthaler and the soak-stain technique

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    Helen Frankenthaler developed the soak-stain technique in 1952 for her painting "Mountains and Sea". She thinned oil paint with turpentine so it would soak into raw, unprimed canvas laid on the floor, creating a translucent effect. This technique emphasized the flatness of the painting while conveying a sense of space. It influenced other artists and launched the Color Field movement. Later, Frankenthaler switched to acrylic paints which gave her more control while avoiding the archival issues of oils degrading the canvas over time.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as ODT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as odt, pdf, or txt
    169 views1 page

    Helen Frankenthaler and The Soak-Stain Technique

    Uploaded by

    CP
    Helen Frankenthaler developed the soak-stain technique in 1952 for her painting "Mountains and Sea". She thinned oil paint with turpentine so it would soak into raw, unprimed canvas laid on the floor, creating a translucent effect. This technique emphasized the flatness of the painting while conveying a sense of space. It influenced other artists and launched the Color Field movement. Later, Frankenthaler switched to acrylic paints which gave her more control while avoiding the archival issues of oils degrading the canvas over time.

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    Helen FRANKENTHALER (1928-2011) and the soak-stain technique

    Technique (excerpt from Wikipedia article on Helen Frankenthaler)


    Frankenthaler often painted onto unprimed canvas with oil paints that she heavily diluted with
    turpentine, a technique that she named "soak stain." This allowed for the colors to soak directly into the
    canvas, creating a liquefied, translucent effect that strongly resembled watercolor. Soak stain was also
    said to be the ultimate fusing of image and canvas, drawing attention to the flatness of the painting
    itself.[6] The major disadvantage of this method, however, is that the oil in the paints will eventually
    cause the canvas to discolor and rot away.[20][21] The technique was adopted by other artists, notably
    Morris Louis (1912–1962), and Kenneth Noland (1924–2010), and launched the second generation of
    the Color Field school of painting.[22] Frankenthaler often worked by laying her canvas out on the
    floor, a technique inspired by Jackson Pollock.[6]

    Mountains and Sea: The Birth of the Soak-Stain Technique


    (liveaboutdotcom)
    "Mountains and Sea" (1952)  is a monumental work, both in size and in historical influence. It
    was Frankenthaler's first major painting, done at the age of twenty-three, inspired by the landscape of
    Nova Scotia after a recent trip there.  At approximately 7x10 feet it is similar in size and scale to
    paintings done by other Abstract Expressionists but is a major departure in terms of the use of paint and
    surface. 
    Rather than using paint thickly and opaquely so that it sits upon the surface of the canvas,
    Frankenthaler thinned her oil paint with turpentine to the consistency of watercolor. She then painted it
    onto unprimed canvas, which she laid on the floor instead of propping vertically on an easel or against
    a wall, allowing it to soak into the canvas.  The unprimed canvas absorbed the paint, with the oil
    spreading out, sometimes creating a halo-like effect. Then by pouring, dripping, sponging, using paint
    rollers, and sometimes house brushes, she manipulated the paint. Sometimes she would lift the canvas
    and tilt it various ways, allowing the paint to puddle and pool, soak into the surface, and move over the
    surface in a manner that combined control and spontaneity. 
    Through her soak-stain technique, the canvas and paint became one, emphasizing the flatness of the
    painting even while they conveyed great space. Through the thinning of the paint, "it melted into the
    weave of the canvas and became the canvas. And the canvas became the painting. This was new." The
    unpainted areas of the canvas became important shapes in their own right and integral to the
    composition of the painting. 
    In subsequent years Frankenthaler used acrylic paints, which she switched to in 1962. As shown in her
    painting, "Canal" (1963), acrylic paints gave her more control over the medium, allowed her to create
    sharper, more defined edges, along with greater color saturation and areas of more opacity. The use of
    acrylic paints also prevented the archival problems her oil paintings had caused by the oil-degrading
    the unprimed canvas.

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