Project 1 Stage 4

This exercise had been worrying me because I thought I was short of material.  Happily I was wrong.

The first image is one I did was I was practicing with oil pastels and trying to blend.  I ended up with something akin to a sunset.  This is just an 8cmx8cm section.

The things I thought of when I looked at the pastels were words like dynamic, hot and spiky. I noticed that these words applied less towards the bottom of the picture.  This drawing was done in seconds and I'm rather pleased with the result.  It seems so simple but it has energy and the dynamic feel I was looking for.

This is a page I nearly tore out because I thought it was awful.  It was just charcoal rubbed on the page.  It is bumpy because of the texture of the paper and I saw no value in it.  But I left it where it was and when I was looking for material for this work I suddenly saw water and movement in it.

I thought to get this sea feeling might be hard but I tried a rubbing on my wicker garden furniture and it is just perfect.  If you look closely you might even see fish.  Somehow I was resistant to using blue; I think the green pastel works well.

I did this when I was trying to make marks with anything and everything.  I used emulsion paint that was quite elderly so it was lumpy and it took marks very well.  When I was considering words to describe the part of the image I was looking at I came up with lumpy texture, soft colours and sharp marks.  This surprised me because those descriptors seem a bit of a mis-match.

However, I tried to work with those words and this is the result.  I used soft pastels and laid colour on without blending until the end so I could try to get the sharpness I wanted.  It doesn't show on the photo but I dripped PVA on for the lumpy feel I wanted.

Once again I was happy with the outcome.  There is a softness as well as the sharpness I wanted.  I have learned not to over blend because that increases the range of effects I can achieve.  Any more blending on this and I would have lost the lines I was aiming at.

I did this when I was playing with bleach and looking at its effect on a variety of papers.  I splodged it, drew with it and generally had fun.

This has an insubstantial air about it probably because I used tissue and mulberry paper.

I'm not at all sure about this.  I tried to get a flimsy feel but I think I went too far.  I planned to leave out the dark contrast; I thought it would make things look too heavy.  Instead I found it looked bland and uninteresting.  The colours I chose were too delicate.  This makes me see that brighter colours can look insubstantial. I put in the striped ribbon and it helped.  I used PVA which was a mistake; I got in a tangle and it didn't stick net very well; maybe spray glue would have been better.  I also think it looks busier than I had anticipated.  I did lay things out prior to sticking and it looked completely different maybe because some bits stood proud of the paper.  This is disappointing because I had given this a lot of thought.
My quick pencil scribble works much better!

I'm so much happier with this pencil crayon and soft pastel attempt.  It gets what I wanted much better.  The colours are bright but muted b the white and rubbing the pastel gave a dreaminess that I like.

Whilst I was leafing through World Textiles by Mary Schoeser I found this detail from an embroidery called Le printemps by Rebecca Crompton (1898-1947) and it reminded me of my work above.  It has the same ethereal quality. The photo in the book was poor and I've no idea what colours were used but my emotional response was similar to my own work. Crompton used a double layer technique in which applique is overlaid by stitched net.

Schoeser, M. 2003, World Textiles, Thames and Hudson, New York.