University Campus Suffolk

Continuing Painting- As many as Possible

After my tutorial with Jane I decided that I would try to make as many paintings as possible over the course of the next week. The reason being I was getting to caught up on one painting and kept re-working and re-working it. At least if I work this way I will be able to see the evolution within my work- instead of that evolution taking place on one canvas.

So that’s what I’ve done I’ve produced around 10-12 paintings/ experiments in hope of taking my work somewhere different.

The results have been quite interesting- with more paintings working better than I expected.

Over the next couple of blog posts I will try to analyse what was successful and what wasn’t, why somethings worked and others didn’t and how I might take my practice further.

These first four paintings are on hard board and are around the 50 × 40 cm size. Like the my other works I had no preconceptions about particular colours but I was very interested in creating a sense of ‘structural space’ within each painting by using masking tape.

In my opinion these painting are my most successful to date and I believe this was down to two reasons. Firstly the harmonies between the colours and the lines and second the scale of the brush strokes and masking lines relative to the board size. The second reason requires a more detailed explanation and so I will save it for another post, but I believe the first reason is down to me becoming more instinctively aware of how colours and lines react together due to the volume of painting I’ve produced.

Of this series I believe Untitled 3 is the most successful. What works for me the most in this painting is clash of similarities between the colours and lines. In some instances the under painting almost completely matches the top layer, only with some subtle tonal differences. I have never seen this before and to me it creates quite an illusionary and discerning effect, which in turn creates a different sensation of space that would be created by contrasting colours and clearly defined lines.

Latest Painting

This painting is a continuation of one I started, decided it wasn’t working and cut it in half. I wanted this painting to concentrate on space, particularly space that can be created using sharp contrasting edges that could perhaps form some sort of ‘structure’, giving the impression of space.

I decided I would mask the painting (this was before I knew of the problems of masking tape) as if there was a distant ‘space’ or ‘wall’ with two lines extending from those edges to form some sort of perspective.

This work has a more architectural composition than my previous ones, due to my conscious decision to concentrate on structured space.

After I laid down the tape I then painted over the top in an attempt to produce colour- line combinations that were in contrast to one another. I tried to do this by using contrasting colours and light and dark tones. The contrasting colours highlight the colours beneath to exaggerate the shapes created by the masking tape.

Masking Tape

I feel like my paintings overall are progressing well. I have started to produce some works that I am happy with and have lots of ideas as to how I will progress- both of which I will talk about in later posts.

However there is one element to my work that is not working, technically it is working but not as well as I’d hoped, and that element is masking tape. I have been using masking tape a lot in my latest paintings as it helps me to create extra dimensions and layers. It is also good to segregate areas of the painting I am happy with so I can re paint areas I am not and create edges and vertices.

In short masking tape has created a depth to my paintings that I believe would be very difficult to create without it. The only problem though is this:

The paint bleeds through the masking tape and more often than takes the underlying paint off when removing it.

I have tried have tried various brands of masking tape, electricians tape and frog tape all of which failed in at least one area. I have tried wetting the tape, unpeeling the tape when the topic coat of paint is wet and dry and I still get the same results

However this then got me thinking- Does it even matter? Ultimately all its doing is making my painting look ‘untidy’

Looking at it from a logical perspective it does and it doesn’t. One could argue aesthetically it does and conceptually it doesn’t. However in this instance the concept of the work relies heavily on it’s aesthetic to make it successful. If the painting doesn’t reflect my attempt to explore colour and space then I guess it could be said to be unsuccessful- at least to me. With this in mind, perhaps I’m not asking then right question.

Maybe the correct question is “Does the negative effects of the masking tape outweigh the positive, in terms of helping me achieve what I want?”

Yes, I think it does.

Experimenting with Space (2)

Once I had the constructed my 3D surface it was time to start painting. I approached this painting the same way as I did with my others- by having no preconceptions of what I wanted to happen in terms of the paint and how I applied it. I wanted to instinctively react to the surface.

I use this approach for the preliminary coat of paint, after that I am consciously aware of the colours I am choosing, how and where they are applied and the techniques I am using to apply them.

I think by working this way I have the best chance of achieving what I want. I say ‘best chance’ because ultimately that’s what it is. I have no idea how the shapes, colours, patterns and textures I’ve chosen will react together. There are some formulas that I am aware of and use (mainly colour wheel positions and colour combinations) but ultimately the overall ‘effect’ of the composition I have little control over.

But I digress… so I painted the first layer as “instinctively” as I could with the idea that I can sculpt the “space” into the work with my second layer. The white primer re-touch marks on the first layer are where the filler I used in the gaps between the boards, reacted with the paint- so I scraped it out sanded it back and re-primed.

With my second layer I wanted to create a strong contrast between my colours. In some of my previous works I’ve noticed that I get too fixated upon the micro aspects of the painting and fail to look at the painting from a macro perspective. I wanted the centre part of the canvas to be considerably lighter than the surrounding edges as I hoped the colours might evoke a sense of tunnel-like perspective. I thought this would work particularly well due to the inclination of the boards being centred towards it.

As a whole I though this layer worked ok. I was happy the centre panels and the overall dark surrounding tones. I was particularly happy with the way the yellow ‘popped’- and was not overshadowed by any of the other colours.

I then masked this layer with masking tape to attempt to create some space within the work (I’ll go into detail about masking in my next post).

This is where I am not too happy with the outcome. As I said before I sometimes get too preoccupied with the individual parts of a painting and don’t take into account how the painting will turn out as a whole- and that’s exactly what has happened here. The painting is a cluttered mess of colour that that does not harmonise well. Objectively the tones of the colours are very similar, as are the colours themselves. There is too much going on to focus on one bit and the viewer is therefore left with a very messy disordered

However it wasn’t a total loss, the experiment did serve the purpose of seeing how the colours would react on different planes. I’m sure that if I had used the paint in a different way I would have achieved some very interesting effect. Nonetheless this experiment has giving me a few ideas and check points from which to work.

Keep the big picture in mind- both with colour and layout.

Don’t over complicate the painting with

Changing the surface does change the effect.

Experimenting with Space

I am becoming more and more interested in the work of Katharina Grosse. I have mentioned her work before in a previous post, but as the piece I am working on at the moment was directly inspired by her practice I thought it would be a good idea to mention her again.

Katharina Grosse’s work looks at exploring the relationship between paint and space. The main driving point behind her work is that paint should not be confined to the restrictions of the architecture that surrounds it. Consequently her work is comprised mainly of installations that are spray painted with bright abstract colours.

This gave me the idea of looking at space in a different way within my own work. As of now I have been exploring the relationship between space and colour on a two dimensional surface.

What would happen if I if I took that surface and made it three dimensional?

It was very important for me that in this experiment I took a two dimensional surface and made it three dimensional instead of taking an already three dimensional object and painting onto that. This is because I was curious to see what spatial effects I could create upon a surface that was acting like a two dimensional surface (ie it would be hung on a wall like a canvas) but is actually three dimensional.

I am curious to see what can be achieved in terms of space with this surface, particularly to see how the colours react as a whole on three dimensional surface as opposed to a two.

I started to construct my ‘three dimensional canvas’ by assembling eight 10 × 8inch boards in top of a larger one- giving me the base I need to produce a variety of gradients between the boards. I eventually found a layout I thought work, and began to construct and prime my “canvas”.