Reflection

Description:

Acrylic, chalk and oil pastel on primed canvas, large scale (bigger than A1), use of saturated, bright colours and gestural brushstroke, abstract expressionist style. Based off the memory/imagery of an overgrown wisteria plant and the emotions evoked from the memory.

while you were making this work what ideas were you thinking about? What thoughts did you have in your head?

I wanted to combine my interest of psychology with art, I thought about the malleability of human memory and the link between memory and emotion. I also considered the project title ‘ scale and illusion’ and how I could incorporate those themes into my work. I became interested in the work of the abstract expressionists because of the emotion that is conveyed through their work. I looked at artists such as Joan Mitchell and Clare price who both use abstraction and expressionism but paint in very different ways with Mitchell’s work being much more physical and gestural whereas Price’s work having a focus on intricate mark making. I also looked at the work of Helen Frankenthaler and Per Kirkeby who further inspired my work. I worked from imagery, I started off by using the image as a basis to remind myself of the scene and then I painted how it made me feel/ emotions associated with that memory.

while you were making this work what did you learn about materials and processes? What did you discover about the way you like to work?

I used a lot of movement in this piece, stretching myself and my arms across the canvas to use large gestural brushstrokes which I really enjoyed because it gave me the opportunity to be very free and expressive in my painting. The scale of the piece is what allowed me to have this freedom and movement. I learnt that the acrylic doesn’t really move across the surface of the canvas without water or texture paste and I made the mistake at first of using a dry brush which made the process of gliding the brush across the canvas in large sweeping motions difficult for me. I layered the paint in some areas as well as slapping/ wiping semi dry acrylic onto the canvas using a dry brush to create blobs of paint in some areas. I found that working onto the surface of the paint using chalk and oil pastels really added textural depth to my piece.

while you were making this work what went well? What didn’t go so well and why?

I think my planning of the space/ composition could’ve been executed better, I feel that it would’ve looked a lot better with more white space left in between the brushstrokes so that you can see the process and feel the rawness of the acrylic. I primed my canvas right to the edges and I didn’t stretch it which meant that the sides slightly curled which took away the focus from the actual painting. The scale of the painting was a good size because I felt able to be expressive and paint with large gestural brushstrokes, as well as it being slightly overwhelming to look at which is the emotion I wanted to evoke because that is how I remember feeling when standing under the Wisteria plant. I think the saturated and bright colour pallet adds to the overwhelming and chaotic appearance of the piece too. I used a variety of large, flat brushes and varying sizes of round brushes which made my piece more interesting and built up the paint in layers in some areas which added depth and texture.

While you were making this work what future possibilities looked interesting? What could you develop/ change?

I’d really like to use the same methods (large brushstroke and large scale but in more figurative style work, possibly working on the human figure. I could change the colour pallet and work with fewer colours/ muted colours as opposed to bright ones.

What I got out of the Crit:

I enjoyed presenting my work in my Crit and I got some constructive criticism about my piece. One classmate said that they would’ve liked to see more tonal variation in my work to add depth and I agreed on this. Another classmate said that I should draw on the canvas first which areas I want to paint on and which areas I want to leave blank which would help me to plan out the space in my piece/ composition, I found this very helpful and I will use this advice in my future work. As well as this , I feel that I really developed my public speaking skills when talking about my work and developed my understanding of my own work and processes.

Scale and Illusion: Project Crit

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