Project 3 Review

Review

Because I'm more comfortable with stitch I approach all the paint sections with a bit of apprehension.  However, I always enjoy it when I get into it and this section was no different.  I particularly enjoyed continuing the colours of the fabric samples and apart from having to remember that paint dries lighter than you  might anticipate I didn't find it too difficult.  I liked just playing with mixing colours and comparing what the differing media can do.  My interest led me to the library where I started looking at some modern painters who use colour theory in a mingling way and in turn that led me to the Impressionists.  Lovely stuff.

In Stage 3 Ex 4 I really did look and copy what I saw and low and behold  got shadows without even thinking about it.  It surprised me that I could produce a reasonable picture by discarding the slavish copy idea and just looking hard.

I enjoy colour and for me it is all about mood and atmosphere. I loved making my colour bags.  It amazed me that I picked so much yellow but I realised that other colours can make it more tolerable.

Yellow seems to be a difficult colour to deal with and that became clear in my stitching.

The colour perception exercises were more of a challenge - sometimes I could get it and other times not.  I will now always look beyond the obvious and be much more enquiring about what I see.

I feel that I'm very much a learner with paint.  I like water colour for it's ethereal qualities and gouache because it can give lots of definition.  At different times I like the qualities of both sorts of paint.  The "mingling" I did worked better with water colours.

Stage 5 seemed to pull together lots that I have been doing - mingling, Impressionists, colour and so on.  The practical application of what I have been learning seemed to make sense and I could appreciate that colours change depending on what they are put with very readily.  This was so particularly in the blue and yellow combinations.  I found it so much easier to see changes in the colours in stitch than in the early exercises in the part of the course with pieces of paper.

The whole thrust of what I'm doing is encouraging me to think more imaginatively and I'm certainly doing that.  I often feel that I haven't "got" something but it becomes clear later on.  I guess if I've a concern it's how do I distinguish between what I can just leave to slot into place and what I really need to grasp first time around.