Studio: 12th May

Under painting with prep drawings - the angles have changed and figures have been substituted. Using the colour studies (top) to inform colour based washes to draw the eye in.

Great day at the studio today - fantastic to be set up ready to paint and have real time to work on it. I now have 2 square canvases on the go, both in the very early stages. I have adopted strategies from last project in terms of my approach to layering and (in future) glazing, combined with the colour theory I have investigated so far in this unit. Certainly, it is already clear that I am using a different colour palette in order make the paintings less saturated. I have also reduced the dark under painting but have introduced another process where I have painted the white highlights after a few washes of colour. This is intended to begin to sculpt form and neutralise some of the cadmium and lemon yellow I use in the early stages. I still want to use this combination of colour but need to deal with it more sensitively, thinking about my Euan Uglow research. Also, I have applied a background wash (a development from my red, yellow, blue paintings) but this time using different colours to try and bind the backgrounds in particular, together from early in the process. Here are some photos of the stages...

Detail - can see how the subtle shades are on her neck and vest fabric

Used white paint (which I never use) to bring out highlights and add structure to the figures. Works well to unify them and show the bodies to be more joined.

Initially under painting - hoping that this will add depth as I build up the layers

I left the figure in the background very late to paint and decided to subtly under paint because the shadows are really important. Quite like the way she is looming out the landscape and how it is ambiguous what she is standing on.

This has a really different colour palette for me - the red, greens, browns and blacks create a more subtle overall effect. I'm really pleased with how this is coming together compositionally where I have introduced some red in the foreground, which I intend to glaze over as I build up layers.

Reflection

Very happy with painting progress so far - brushstrokes are energetic and colours are soft and subtle by my standards. I have worked largely with a sharp edged brushed which has enables me to quickly and accurately block in areas of colour. As a pair, I like that one is pressed up against the canvas, filling much of the foreground; the other begins to suggest space and places the viewer lower down making the environment seem vast. I have recognized a similar curve in both which is intended to draw the figures or viewer through the picture space - a pathway or route out. One has dark shadows and heavy use of under painting (although less dominant than in previous trials). The other I have kept light so currently there is a pleasing tonal contrast between the images. There is much more movement in these pieces than I have used in the past - a result of the photographic series and response to instability and sense of falling. There is still a sense of hybridity and I hope reference to metamorphosis - I'm looking forward to working into their surfaces as I know they will evolve immensely over the coming months.

One Month Reflection
Looking back at these very early stages, much of this mark making is covered, but the subtle colour decisions cemented how the pieces would evolve. For example, the pink,blue, green of the twins seen in these early stages are still quite prominent as are the earthier shades of the other piece. Although I had made compositional decisions through digital collage and drawing, these simple shapes embedded areas of shadow and have become the bones of the painting for vast landscape and foliage to be built on.  On reflection, when I started these pieces I began slightly quicker than I might have done if the time scale for the unit was longer. However, the nature of the reflective practice unit is that my reflection must be exposed, so all my thinking has been documented in real time, either on this blog or in my electronic annotations which will emerge as a 'book' of the journey when the work has finished.