Project 4 Stage 3

Selecting from your drawings

It's surprised me to stand back and see the volume of work I've done in just under 4 months.  What I noticed most was the colours I'm using; reds, yellows and vibrant contrasts and I'm really enjoying doing it.  My work recently has taken a quite unexpected direction with lots of energy and exuberance. Six months ago my schemes and shapes would have been almost exclusively delicate and toned down.  I'm not sure whether this represents a growing confidence or just a new recognition of the effect of the colour and design.

I've chosen snips from throughout the course.  I played with different frames and always came back to  an 8cm square except for the circular one which is a 6cm diameter.

This is from a much larger collage in the early part of the course when I was experimenting with mark making and bleach.  It reminds me of fireworks.

It is turned through 180 deg from the original because I preferred the shower effect.

This is part of an oil pastel drawing of an apple.  I like the depth where the stalk comes from the middle.  This was the first drawing I felt pleased with.  

This is taken from an A3 picture I did when I was looking at the effects of colours on each other.  It is in felt tip pen and completely random.  I think of grasses shaking and rattling in the wind because there is so much movement just as there was in my hand when I was drawing it.

This is in soft pastels and started life as a design on Fijian fabric and then a computer generation where it looked very flat.  I like this because it shows the texture of the hand made paper and  I love it's pushy, in your face shapes and colours. I'm thinking it's going to pop up time after time in lots of ways.  I've lots of plans for it.

This is taken from a very recent exercise and I like the way that as a fragment it could be interpreted  in lots of different ways.  This too is in pastels and the colour washed paper shows through in a lovely, moody way.  It looked so much better in the round frame.

This feels very different to the other selections; it's a little less flamboyant as regards colour.  The work was done as a doodle developed from an eraser rubbing and wasn't intended to be cohesive.  However, there are lots of snips I could have taken that work well or that I think have other possibilities.

Snip 1

Snip 2

In snip 1 the central pathway divides busy 

areas where many things are happening but never touching each other.   In the original work there are other areas like snip 2 that have elements that could be introduced to make a new image.

Composite picture

I like the way that my work still has the feeling of being a doodle.  Once again the feeling is energetic and full of life.  I've left my very obvious mistake as  a salutary lesson.  I wondered what the effect of more "comma" marks would be and instead of trying it in pencil I went straight to felt tip.  Big mistake.  It took all the energy from that section of the drawing.  Amazing effect.

One thing I noticed was the way the image looks good whichever way it’s viewed.

The best thing about this was the critique from my seven year old grandson.  He said it looked like a big water splash, a firework or an explosion and he was able to identify the component parts from the original.  More honest and open appraisal I could not wish for.