Visit Indy Commission

January 2019

Just as Cannon completed his cloud series with his impression of the Andromeda Galaxy, he was asked to create a composition that represented the energy that Visit Indy brings to our Circle City. This composition would be reproduced and gifted as a thank you to the visit Indy board members at their December board meeting. Cannon accepted the challenge.

We began searching for the inspiration for the composition. Cannon searched the internet for symbols of our state and city and began to imagine the colors that could represent these symbols.

 

 

Circle City acrylic on board  16"x16"

 

Monument Circle is consider the center of Indianapolis and it’s Soldiers and Sailors monument is made of Indiana limestone – the same limestone that was used to build the Empire State Building in New York City and the National Cathedral in Washington DC.

We decided that the composition should be circular and at the center should be the gray color of the Indiana limestone.

For Cannon, curved lines and circular movements are challenging. He has developed the skills to create curved oval lines and shapes but since he wanted this composition to be circular we had to develop a bit of technology to meet this goal.

A week or so of thinking about this led Ms Beth to the top shelf of her coat closet where family games were stored. The Deluxe Scrabble game with turn table offered a solution. The “lazy Susan” board easily turned in a full circle. The measurements were taken and a square wooden paint panel was found with inside dimensions that fit the Scrabble board perfectly. 

When Cannon first explored this “invention” we played a few rounds of the game. Cannon quickly picked up the game and soon needed no help in making words out of the tiles he was given.

Cannon’s first step in creating the Visit Indy Circle City commission was to cover the paint board with a background color. He chose ….blue the color of the background of the Indiana State Flag.  

 

 

We found the center of the board and then he used the rounded end of the small foam paint roller to make a limestone gray circle to represent Monument Circle.

He then used a varied of painting tools, rollers, brushes, to add other colors that represented the city and state: reds for the cardinal, green for the White River State Park and the many other parks and green spaces throughout the city, Colts blue and Pacer blue and orange, yellow to represent the light and energy of the city, there is even a touch of pink to represent the peony, our state flower.

Cannon directed the turn of the paint board and sometimes moved it himself with his brush. Sometimes he used his right hand and arm to turn the board.

The last step in this commission was to add the Visit Indy Logo to the lower right hand corner. Again we pondered the best way for Cannon to achieve this goal. We considered a cut out and then decided on using a silk screen to paint the logo directly on the paint board.

After some experimenting the logo was cut into the masking sheet, placed in the corner and Cannon used the squeegee to press the paint through the screen onto the board.

Heading to 2019

We had so much fun using the silk screen, Cannon agreed to some more experiments.
First Cannon helped dad screw hinge to the silk screen frame and to the board.

Cannon selected a color and applied the ink to the screen.  Then he used the squeegee to pull the ink over the screen, through it to the paper below.

 


 The final image - contrasting light and dark areas - a mixture of red, yellow, orange and white inks.create a variety of textures create and interesting impression of "Orange".