Reflection

How have discussions with other people affected my work?

I had a discussion with my tutor who suggested that I be more relaxed in my approach to painting the human figure, almost look at it as abstract shapes/forms without much definition. In order to help me to be more relaxed in my approach I thought about using scraps of old cardboard, old books and old paper to paint on. I also considered using larger bushes to be more free and expressive when painting.

My tutor also suggested that I choose my colour pallet according to the themes/emotions I want to portray/convey so, I decided to do a colour experimentation chart, using grey as an undertone to all the colours and mixing the grey with pink, crimson, black, white, blue and burnt and raw sienna in separate squares to show the colour/tonal contrast. I used these colours because I had done some research on the western meaning of colours and I found that red means love, anger, danger passion and chaos, pink means femininity, nurture, care, blue means coldness, grey means dull and uninteresting, brown means endurance and it is associated with earth. All these colours are themes/ emotions that I want to portray/ convey in my project. I think that the colour chart will help me with the choice of colours in my future work for this project.

Through the discussion with my tutor I had thoughts about making a piece with multiple figures as well as playing with scale/perspective and using poetry as a background for my piece, all of which intend on doing in future work.

What problems have i encountered, what ideas do I have for solutions?

I had concerns that I was making my work too similar to the work of artists that I have been studying to ‘inspire’ my work and it lacked originality. To avoid this I will work from my imagery more as well as personal experience and incorporate some poetry in some aspect. I will also use more artists to inspire my work so that I have a wider variety/ range of different processes, application and technique to study and use in my own work.

How do I feel about how it is going?

I’m really enjoying using the human figure as a focus for my project as well as reading Rupi Kaur’s poetry. I feel that until now my work has been mainly experimentation which has formed a basis for what I want to do but I’d like to start working on more complete pieces of work, perhaps spending slightly longer on them and using techniques such as layering and working on a larger scale. I would like to use different types of paint for this work e.g. oil paint, gouache, watercolour as until now I’ve only been using acrylic paint as well as working on different surfaces such as cardboard and old books. I’d also like to experiment with methods of paint application and changing the consistency of the paint through the use of water/mediums.

How are my ideas developing?

I’ve started to incorporate poetry into my work, today I wrote out a Rupi Kaur poem called ‘disconnected’ on khadi paper and i then ripped it up into small pieces and stuck it down on another sheet of khadi paper. This poem really resonates with me because it talks about feeling as if the mind and the body are ‘completely different people’ which is an emotion I am familiar with as someone who finds it hard to feel present. I would like to find different ways to use poetry in my work for example, ekphrastic poetry- poetry written about works of art or by writing poetry on my own body/the figure in my painting, as well as having the poem visible to read across the surface/in the background of my work. I’ve started to think about layering the paint, in my experiment with the multiple figures (above) I experimented using watered down greys and layering them/ letting them drip onto of one another and I liked the effect this technique gave as it reminded me of the voile and chiffon/crepe I used to wrap around my body in my photographs.

What have I learnt about how I like to work as an artist/designer ?

I’ve learnt that I like working directly from imagery in front of me and that I find it very difficult to abstract the image if it is figurative. I’ve learnt that I like to gather all the relevant materials such as poetry, images/info about artists that inspire me, old pieces of work, and different materials and surfaces and have them all in front of me in order to decide what to produce. I enjoy working standing up with my work on the wall rather than sitting down at a desk because I find it easier to be expressive in this way.

How can I develop my work from here?

I’d like to focus on different scales and perspectives of the human body and experiment further with using multiple figures in my work. I may write my own poetry based off my work/photographs , I want to start spending longer on my work to produce more ‘complete’ pieces rather than just experimentation. I’ve also been thinking of ways to use the materials that helped inspire my project in my work itself for example, painting on voile/crepe or incorporating it into my paintings in some way as well as using pages of poetry in my work/ painting on/ in old books.

(Below) are drawings I did at my first life drawing class this week. I enjoyed drawing the figure from a real life model in front of me and I also liked the fact that were sat in a circle so everyone’s drawings were from different angles/ perspectives. However, I found it hard to do the drawings under the time restraints (2,5,10, 20 mins) and I found that I could not complete my drawings/have time to do any shading etc. I also realised how difficult it is to draw a body with the correct proportions and found that I kept having to erase my work during the class until I got the shapes and ratios right. I would like to continue going to life drawing classes to develop my skills and improve on the things I found challenging.

The life drawing class inspired me to do some larger scale drawings which I decided would be templates/plans for future large scale pieces I intend on producing. Again I found it very challenging to draw the each body part in proportion and found they looked disproportionate. I will continue to practice drawing from my images in order to improve on drawing the human figure.

I am interested in producing large scale pastel drawings/ paintings that ‘hide’ the persons identity through not showing/ blocking out their face as this brings about feelings of detachment and numbness which are themes I want to convey through my work in this project.

Part 2: fine art painting specialism

Part 2: fine art painting specialism

Film, music, poetry project: week 2

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