ArtistsNetwork.com 71painting look good, I’ll leave them. If areas aren’t working,
then I’ll repaint them. There’s a lot of back and forth.”
When the paint has dried, Balmer sands into the layers,
which allows for even more random things to happen. “It
breaks things completely apart,” he says. “The unpredict-
ability is what I’m going for, and I don’t have much control.
I wouldn’t have expected that using such a tool would
improve my paintings, but somehow it does. The finished
piece has the look of a sketch as well as a painting.”
Drills and sanders aren’t the only tools in Balmer’s kit.
He uses other items to score, scratch and etch; palette
knives to spread thick paint; and brayers to roll on oils.
“Rolled paint on a gessoed surface adds a nice texture and
doesn’t fill in my scored line,” he says, “so the oil color sits
on top and contrasts nicely with the black etched line.”
PULLING IT TOGETHER
Once he has sanded the dry paint, the piece is “a big mess,”
according to Balmer, but he has built up the character he
wants. He spends some time fixing it, keeping some areas
sanded, but making it work as a whole. “It’s almost like doing
two paintings,” he explains. “I do it once blocky style, then
I go in and sand it all away. Then I go back and clean it all
up. If that doesn’t work, I start the whole process again.”
If he can’t work it out, he’ll leave the piece for a while, then
go in and sand it a lot more. “I may even use the Dremel
tool again,” he says. “Those paintings always work out the
best—the ones that I’ve gone over many times, trying out
different compositions on the same painting.”
THE TOOLS OF TEXTURE
Balmer turns to power tools as part of his working
methods. He uses a Dremel rotary tool with a spinning
wheel (see below) to go over a drawing, etching lines into the
surface. These incised lines add interesting texture to the
work. The artist also uses a sander (see bottom photo) to
remove layers of paint and reveal hidden color.