Reflection
Now seems like a good time to look back over what I have done so far and where I see my work heading in the lead up to our degree show.
Before Christmas my work was very different to what I’m doing now, but like I said in my earlier posts I really wasn’t enjoying what I was doing and that is why I changed my focus onto my current project.
Once I had got my dissertation handed in I could really focus on my practice and develop my current idea. What I wanted to do was create paintings that had a real atmospheric feel to them. Whether it was how I started painting with more dramatic stormy seascapes, or some of my more recent smaller paintings, which put across a calmer more relaxed view. With this project I wanted to work more from memory rather than working directly from an image. I think this aspect helps me to keep the sense of abstraction in my paintings. What I did not want was a typical seascape depicting a sky, a sea, a sun set and boats in the horizon, which really wasn’t the look I was going for. A lot of the work I have done so far is experimenting to see how different ideas would look. As this was a subject matter that I have never looked at before within my practice I was not really sure how different ideas would turn out, I feel like a lot of the works I have created even while experimenting have gone pretty well. However as lots of what I was doing was experimenting, some things didn’t turn out as well, like colour choices or the composition choices. But that’s fine, that’s the whole reason why I tried these things out first in my sketch book and on paper. Anyway, I am pretty pleased with what I’ve been creating so far and I’m glad I did change my project as I’m really enjoying painting again.
So, in the next couple of months leading up to the degree show what is it that I want to do? Well, I really want to work on a big scale canvas again, kind of around the size I am working on at the minute, which is roughly 6 x 4ft. I think working on a big scale really helps put across the sense of atmosphere to the viewer. As well as this I’d like to try framing some of the small paintings I did on paper, like the two small paintings I put in for our auction as I really liked how these looked. Even though they aren’t big dramatic and atmospheric paintings, personally I find them really calming to look at and that is the atmosphere I am creating with these paintings, a calm and tranquil feel.
When I think about the degree show and what I want to put in I am not 100% sure exactly what I will have up as I am still making work, although I think a big painting much like the size I am working on now would look really good, or maybe even two paintings alongside each other, slightly smaller than the 6 x 4ft canvas I’m using now but still quite big. Then I can have my sketch book, smaller canvases and smaller framed paintings as supporting works.
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner was an artist whose work I had put up in my studio space right near the start of this semester. I first started to look at his work because of his subject matter which linked in with my own project.
I then became interested in Turner’s almost dusky looking seascape paintings as these inspired me the most out of his works. What inspired me was his use of colour; his paintings seem to have an almost muted colour pallet which creates the dusky look, however they are still vivid and eye catching.
I really love Turner’s smaller works on paper as these are less figurative than some of his larger pieces and this is what links in with my own work. A lot of the smaller sketch book work I have done is very abstract compared with the larger paintings I have done so far. However the colours I have used do not really resemble Turner’s softer colour pallet.
I think as my project progresses I will look at Tuner’s work in much more depth. However for now I just wanted to talk about why I have put pictures of his work up in my studio space and what I like about his work.
Today I spent the morning in the studio trying out painting with a squeegee. The images on the right show the results of my experiments.
While experimenting I wanted to try different colours next to each other to see how they would merge together. I also thought about the direction the paint would go in and the pressure I would need to apply to get an even coverage.
When trying this out on paper I found it worked and looked much better when there was lots of paint used as it looked thicker and more of a solid line of colour.
After experimenting a little I tried using a squeegee on to a small part of my 6 x 4ft canvas to see what affect this would have. Im pretty pleased with how it looks and I think I’ll try this technique on other parts of the painting.
After looking at the work of Gerhard Richter I wanted to research more into other artists that use a similar technique of painting with a squeegee. I wasn’t necessarily looking for artists that have the same subject matter as what I’m looking at, just for artists that use the same technique in their process and to look at the outcome of this technique.
While researching I found the artist Kimberley Bruce on the Saatchi Art Online website. Kimberley Bruce’s work almost documents the process she goes through to make each piece of work. When talking about this she said that while creating a piece she will be pouring and dripping paint and scraping and squeegeeing and paint will drip over the sides of the canvas. Instead of neatening the edges she leaves them, by doing this the process has been recorded and becomes a part of the artwork.
http://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Terra/416637/1569533/view
This technique is something I am definitely going to try within my own work, I love how all the colours merge together but there is still a vibrant feel to the paintings. Tomorrow I am going to spend the morning in the studio experimenting with this technique and I will post the outcomes on here afterwards.
Over the weekend I finally took some of my own images at Harwich beach. The main reasons for taking my own images is that if I am going to be taking inspiration from pictures some of them should really be my own. Also I want to use my own images as a reference for colours and composition.
Things I was thinking about when taking the photographs:
• Composition – I didn’t want to have lots of photos of just sky and sea, I wanted to have a mixture of different things, so that when I am painting I can look to these photos for composition inspiration and take different things from different images.
• Horizon – Something I have been thinking about is where I place the horizon in my paintings. When taking these photos I wanted to try and get a variation of where the horizon sits within the picture.
• Balance – The balance in the photos links in with the placing of the horizon. For example I wanted photos that had more sky than sea, so the horizon would be nearer the bottom of the image, making it look top heavy and vice versa. I also wanted some pictures where there was an even balance between sky and sea and the horizon sits in the middle of the image.
• Colours – In the photos I wanted to try and capture the different colours within a natural seascape. When I am painting I can then look to these photos for colour inspiration.
