experimentation with final piece for place

After receiving positive feedback from my last piece of work on the place project I decided to create a version of the sunset i had created but on a larger scale to see if i could create a final piece from this idea. The image linked to this post is the outcome of the sunset on the larger scale.
I personally wasn’t happy with this outcome, following my thoughts on the outcome i decided to ask some of my peers to critique my work and this was some of the feedback:
– Nice colour blending in the sky
– could have some lighter reflections in the water near the setting sun
– love the use of different colours
– the sun rays are really good
– colours in the sky are gorgeous
– the psychedelic colours have created a serene atmosphere

After reading back through the feedback on my work i realised that the unsuccessful element of the painting was the water and that i actually quite liked the sky that i had created. The sky is the first thing that catches your eye when you look at the painting it draws you in however when you notice the what appears to be water you start to get distracted from the sky which destroys my aims within this project. My aims of this project was to evoke emotions that are attached to peoples memories of a certain place, i think that by adding the actual place to the painting im taking away the aim as im giving the audience a place to look at, whereas if i was to paint only the sky then it would allow the viewer the opportunity to imagine a place to go with the sky i have created thus sticking to my original aims within the project.

place project

after experimenting with many different materials and styles of painting the sky, i have found that the most successful way of painting the sky is in oils, it allows you to capture the true time and place before your eyes, i believe that a painting can hold emotions , and when you look at a piece of art the emotion is caused by a memory that the art has reminded you off. My aim with painting the sunsets is to evoke emotions that are attached to peoples memories of a certain place, whether it be a childhood memory or a recent visit to the beach that is my aim with this project.

memories linked to place

At this point in my project i am currently working from photographs which essentially isn’t conveying my intentions of showing an emotion in relation to a memory of a place.
So taking this information on board my next step within this project will be to do some real life drawings whether it be lying down and drawing whats above me or finding a sunset to paint.
This image is of a painting i did earlier from sitting on a hill and painting the sky in front of me, it is slightly more abstract than i had expected however i was pleased with the outcome and this has fuelled my inspiration to do more drawings from in front of me instead of the screen in front of me.

Ken Bushe – artist research – Landscape Painting Artist

I chose to research Ken Bushe in relation to my project ‘place’ as he holds a particular interest in painting the sky; ‘Ive always reacted strongly to the landscape of the sky and if i could live in it, i would, painting clouds and sky are as close as i can get’.
Ken Bushe is a massive influence on my current project, i aim to be able to capture the sky scape in the way that Bushe is able to. The colours, tone and style of paint all compliment each other perfectly and create something visually appealing to the eye. JMW Turner was somebody that influenced Bushe; ‘Turner has given me more insight into colour and light than any other artist and without trying to copy his work, i hope this painting (Discovery Dawn) acknowledges Turner and his vision.
All these paintings take the sky or clouds as their main subject. Scottish skies are well known for the extreme range of colour and light which can be observed on a daily basis. The significance of this moving cloud landscape on our daily lives and emotions cant be overestimated, and when we now spend much more of our time inside it is important to not shut it out of our lives to our detriment, as though these things don’t matter.
sunset painting (A celebration of the colour and light at sunset) Painting sunset and sunrise confronts an artist with the widest range of colour, tone and light of any subject in the natural world. The symbolism associated with light, colour and the sun itself run through every core belief of our species and make the act of painting these subjects much more than a technical exercise.

place – initial ideas

My initial thoughts on the project ‘place’ was places over a period of time; different view points on a place depending on the time of day and the effect of different light on a particular place: shadows, light, shades, atmostphere.
My first thought was to create a landscape or chose a particular landscape to draw/ paint and duplicate that one place a number of times but to change the time of day, to change the landscape in a number of ways.
After experimenting with this particular type of day (sunset) in oil paint I was inspired to look more closely at how the sky changed and i now want to take a different approach to the project ‘places’ by focusing mainly on the sky.

Ambiguity of human emotions

Portraits have a sense of ambiguity as you’ll never know how somebody else is feeling. The only person that you know’s complete feelings is yourself, people can hide true emotions behind different facial expressions.
i came up with the idea of combining two faces, as in relation to leaving a piece of work ambiguous to the viewer depending on a portraits emotions which gave me the idea to combine two emotions.
I looked through my sketchbook and found two portraits that I had already sketched, I picked these two portraits as they were the two most successful images in relation to ambiguity within human emotions. I also chose two very different portraits (one with the eyes open and one with them closed, and one with the mouth open and one with the mouth closed) I did this so that when the two faces are combined it would be confusing and hard to tell which face is which.
After brain storming ways in which i could combine the two faces I decided to combine them by creating a print. I chose this method as I thought that this piece would be more successful as a simple line drawing and that printing would be the most successful way of doing this.

the making of ‘ambiguity of human emotions’

After deciding to combine to faces to create a third as a final piece for my persons project that i have labelled ‘ambiguity of human emotions’ i found two faces that I had already sketched out in my sketchbook whilst experimenting with creating faces that held an ambiguity behind their emotions, i choose to put together these two particular faces as they were the most successful in portraying ambiguity in human and emotion. The two faces are very different; i did this so that when the two faces are combined it will be confusing as to which face is which.
After tracing the two images to put together to create my image i started to brain storm ways in which i could combine the two faces in terms of materials and style. After some experimentation i decided that the faces would look better as a simple line drawing and that the way that i was going to do this was as a print. i printed one face at a time onto a piece of card and found that it was successful, i did some more experimenting with printing in different colours and photocopying the print that i had made already and decided that the original print worked the best.