Hurrah! Our next assignment has arrived and it is called colour. Colour is one of my favourite things in life. I am deeply affected and moved by it. I really enjoy it and I love putting colours together. So I am determined that I will enjoy this assignment.
First of all we are asked to express some words such as "calm" "bold" "merge" "rich" "sombre" in colour form. We are to use a wide decorators brush, large sheets of paper and can incorporate other mediums such as papers or studies or wax crayon.
My first picture was going to use the word "reflect" and to a certain extent it does but it also represents the word "merge" so there you have it. Breaking the rules already!
The picture started out life as some wax crayons grated on to a sheet of A2 cartridge paper.
I then placed another sheet on top and placed a hot iron on top of the two sheets.
They looked really greasy through the paper and I was really worried as they had looked so beautiful before. I was also aware of the reason I was trying to create a reflective piece which is that sadly a friend of mine, who I have known since primary school died of a brain tumour recently and all the while I was making this piece I was thinking of her and remembering happy times such as learning to horse ride together, or the fact that she was always thoughtful and kind and bright and sunny.
So you can imagine I was really upset when they peeled apart to reveal this horrible mess. There were unsightly lumps of wax sticking to one half and bare patches on the other half. The colours were not what I would choose for reflection either. It was so sad, not least because I had grated my daughters wax crayons it seemed in vain!
I thought about chucking the pages in the bin, painting over them or adding another medium. But something told me that this Should have worked. so I added a little more wax crayon and ironed it all again. And then left it for about 3 hours.
The results were fantastic! Very reflective with tree like shapes in front of dappled colours - all very thought provoking. I felt close to tears and felt I had made a fitting reflective piece for my friend.
Some areas, such as the one above are still a bit murky but for me that is where the "merge" comes in. So it depends really which area you look at as to which word or mood you can take.
The next piece I started was going to be "space" the holes sewn by sewing machine without thread, the different areas with the newspaper and purple stitches at the top. This was spacious indeed. I then added some bright green stripes of paint. I love green. It makes me think of spacious fields and countryside and gives a feeling of space and freedom. It is an uplifting colour and I think the feeling of having enough space is uplifting too.
Once I had added the green paint however I was undecided as to whether it should be "space" or "bold". I think it is quite bold to use just one colour on a piece of work. You have to be confident about the colour and even though I have used different tones there is no mistaking that the overriding image of this picture is green. The holes and stitches and newspaper that I had so carefully planned and separated and laid out had all but been swallowed up by the vivid green! But I like it. So "Bold Space" it is!
Just realised I haven't added the green photos so you will have to pop back for the finished article!!
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