Degree Project

Hanging

I have now hung the circles, all by myself!

I didn’t want them to look symmetrical so the light circle is positioned at the top, so you are forced to look up into it as its above eye level. The middle circle is at eye level as it represents life at present and the dark circle is positioned below eye level forcing you to look down into it.

I have also now decided on names for them, Refuge, Breach and Drift.

The Finished Circles.

As the artist it’s one of my pleasures to work on a painting one day and come in the nexy when it’s dried and looks completely different, (but always in a good way). And with the particular way that I work this becomes quite prominent, as I work with such wet materials, I usually leave the work when its’ covered in puddles.

I noticed this much more in my darkest circle, as I was using a particular medium which would take a while to dry clear. I found painting this piece was the most detailed and rewarding. I would spend a lot more time with this painting as I worked my way around it nudging the little paint rivers along to encourage them to form a network of lines. It’s beautiful to watch too, especially with liquitex as the paint swirls before you and journeys across the canvas. Overall I love how this painting has achieved a great deal of depth and every time I look at it I don’t know quite where to look, which is exactly what I wanted, for the viewer to feel lost.

Possible names for the Dark Circle (along the lines of the word ‘lost’)
sleep silent isolate lost missing astray whisper search seek drift

Painting the Middle circle was the most challenging as this was the one the bowed the most. Though I was determined to make it work, even if I realised I had been painting on it upside down and so half way through and had to quickly decide on a new composition. Painting the little life forms was the most fun for me, I wanted them to be just hints of life, no real obvious creature, just colours you may associate with vibrancy and life along with the strange clear bodies of creatures found in the deep sea.

Possible names for the Medium Circle (along the lines of the word ‘sanctuary’)
hide hidden cradle safe haven sanctuary refuge

The lightest circle, was the most intriguing to paint, as I don’t normally work with such light colours, I wasn’t sure how the final image would look. At the beginning it looked more like the moon than a painting of the sea. Over a gradual process of forcing the paint from the outside to the middle, if it were a canvas it would have sunk to the middle anyway but with board I had to control it more, I built up a few layers of blues and greens around the edge. It was as if the seaweed was growing around me as I slowly sunk deeper and deeper each day I painted on it. This finished painting makes me feel like I’m looking up, but I don’t quite know what I’m looking up into, it’s just pure light.

Possible names for the Light Circle (along the lines of the word ‘reach’)
light wake awaken breathe elevate rise breach

Why I paint the way I do

My process has been hindered due to the MDF. I would usually work with a lot more water. But because I am now conscious of how easily they can bow my approach therefore has been much more caring.
My process is still a balance between control and chance, with the Liquidtex for example, when I pour the paint onto the medium, I don’t know what shapes it’s going to take, what direction it’s going to go in, most of the time I poured too much on than I would have liked and the paint suddenly expands on the surface.
When I use paint I water it down tremendously, Therefore it becomes much more fluid and uncontrollable.
It has more of a chance to surprise me that way, I let the paint decide on its initial form itself, then I work with that or work around it, if it decides to go somewhere I hadn’t expected, I let it.
By allowing the paint to initially choose its path the finished result is more natural, this is also why I don’t use a paint brush.

Ideas behind Degree show paintings.

I want to paint a non-typical image of the sea. They will be imagined images, so are not copied from any reference. I want my paintings to be an impression of the sea, or feelings of the sea.
I’m concentrating on 3 different feelings which relate to 3 different areas of the ocean.

The darkest painting will be based on the feeling that you are so deep you can’t work out your surroundings, when its dark all you can see are the flickering lights from the technicolor life forms floating around you, there paths all blur together creating depth and a neverending network of strange shapes and colours. I want the viewer to feel overwhelmed by the vastness of the sea, I want them to feel lost, immersed.

The middle/medium painting will be similar to my Sanctuary painting, inspired by the colours and textures of a coral city, it encompass the feeling that hidden life is thriving all around you, it is a place where you feel safe and secure.

The lightest painting’s main focus will be light, sunlight. You are underwater, you are looking up, are you trying to reach the surface? Or are you beginning to sink? This painting will be a combination of fear and serenity. As you float below the surface, its beautiful yet distressing. You don’t know how far away the surface is.

I have already done a few base coats on each circle and here are some visual ideas of what I plan them to look like.

Dark circle
murky lots of layers, like Twilight Zone, you’re so deep down, you can’t work out where you are, like video painting layers built up with liquitex, lots of little rivers.

Medium/Middle Circle
Like Sanctuary lots of lively colours built up with paste for a matte effect, like a coral city, a place of vibrant life and safety.

Light Circle
like The Light Water, with light in middle (a base coat of sunlight), with blues and greens coming in from the outside like your looking up at the surface.

Degree Show Prep

For my degree show im making 3 circles out of MDF, as any circle canvases bought online are expensive and not big enough, i also thought 3 is a good number because they would fit well in the wall space i have and the composition would be ok visually.

With a little help from the technician, I cut my circles out of MDF boards. I originally was going to stretch canvas over them but there were a few problems in the way of that and I needed to start work on them as soon as possible, so I decided to work on the bare board, I primed the boards with PVA and started working on them.

I had a huge problem, my circles began to bow, this hindered everything because the time I had before they needed to be done was now being taken up on trying to fix the bowing. I did not realise I had to prime the back as well as no one suggested it to me and I have never worked on board before.

After a day or so and a lot of hard work I managed to reverse most of the bowing. But this changed how I worked on the boards, because they obviously bowed because i use a tremendous amount of water in my process. I continued with my original ideas but i was much more careful and only using as much water as I needed.