2020-06-01_The_Artists_Magazine

46 Artists Magazine June 2020

MATERIALS

Surface:birchplywood

sealedwithcleargesso;

occasionallycopper,

gessoedhardwoodorlinen

ona rigidsurface

Oils:“Ihavenotruebrand

loyalty,”saysKordic,

“exceptforonecolorabout

whichI’mfussy—Winsor&

Newtonburntsienna—

becauseit’sa big

componentinmyflesh

mixture;otherwise,I buy

thingsoutofcuriosityor

what’sonsale.”

Mediums:Gamblin

solvent-freegel“becauseit’s

odorlessandquickdrying”

Mark-makers:printmaking

brayers,squeegees,palette

knives,scrapers,painting

tape,sandpaper,fingers

Brushes:“Itendtobuy

cheappacks,”saysKordic.

“Idon’trelyonthemsince

myothertoolsaremymost

usedmark-makers.I do

havea fewTrekkellbrushes

thatarenice,though.”

5 Kordic added blue to the sky and applied a semi-transparent

glaze to the model’s face, reducing contrast and creating a sense

of a veil or mist between viewer and subject. She textured the

tree by adding long, vertical striations, using a squeegee.

6 “At this stage, the paint starts to dominate,” says the artist.

To redress the balance between image and paint, she begins

to re-establish the drawing. In this case, she added a clean

red-brown line around the left side of the head and neck. “It’s

a combination of fi nding how much of the realism to keep and

how much pure mark-making to create,” says Kordic. “The big

stroke around the head was needed to keep that balance.”

7 Kordic then proceeded to obliterate sections of the hair and

left shoulder while breaking up the color in the foreground.

“While I’m working through this stage, I sometimes fl ip the

painting on its side. It helps me see the work as an object

rather than as an image,” she says. She also looks at the piece

in a mirror from time to time to get a fresh view.

8 As Kordic worked, an entirely new hairstyle, channel-

ing Marie Antoinette, appeared on the model’s head, and

changes to the right shoulder seemed to be morphing into

something like a cape. More paint action occured all around.

“It’s that searching that’s going on,” says the artist. “I’m still

waiting for that moment of, ‘Okay—here’s the direction.’

When I don’t have that, I have to do something dramatic.

Sometimes it’s a big mark, a value change or a move that will

cause a reaction.”

In fact, the artist has a whole repertoire of things she can

do to shock herself into a new place in the painting. “The list

is growing,” she says. “It’s exciting. I’m not bored when I find

things that get me out of the box. I’m so prone to doing

things in a linear way, carrying on with the rendering.

Working this new way has given me a strange respect for

gimmicks. I used to bash them, but now I realize there can

be reasons to use them. They get you out of your way and

shake things up.”

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