I thought it might be a good idea to create a weekly post (that I add to daily) of my painting experiments for the confluence project, a kind of visual-log of my progress.
NB: unless otherwise stated, all paintings are acrylic on paper
Monday, 24 April
No.1 – I like the colours and balance.
No.2 – I like the light, and the highlights on the horses legs.
No.3 – Although flatter than the other 2 paintings, I like the smooth finish on this one. I also like the white line drawings.
Tuesday, 25th April
No.4 – I like the falling water (it has a mystical quality, which is appropriate for water). I also like the bird’s eye. I want the eyes in my paintings to be soulful and convey emotion.
No.5 – I love the grid, especially the white outlines. I also like the chair (for some strange reason I love chairs in paintings…I wonder if it has to do with the fact that a chair is usually the example given when discussing Plato’s world of forms). Although I do like the white line drawing, I think I prefer a more abstract drawing, like no.3.
Wednesday, 26th April
No.6 – This is my favourite so far, everything about it works for me. I think the grid is gorgeous, the inspiration for it was from a photo a friend in NZ posted of Instagram of a building in Wellington. She did her masters thesis on Hecate, the goddess of crossroads. I was just reading about Hecate and crossroads the other day. A river confluence is a type of crossroad, hence why they were seen to be imbued with power. I thought it might be interesting to represent a river confluence in my paintings with this grid, as opposed to an actual depiction of two rivers meeting.
I also like this type of chair, and think it looks good in a painting. Palette good.
No.7 – I love cranes and industrial machinery, especially those involved with water. In general, I find cross-hatching aesthetically pleasing. I think a crane (or in this case an oilrig), will work better as a line-drawing in a painting than flowers (as No.5 above).
Thursday, 27 April
No.8 – I absolutely love this painting. It is about death, as symbolised by the following: the grid – confluence (entrance to the underworld); apples = seeds of new life (the Celts buried people with apples – a tradition that is thought to go much further back); material = (the veil between this world and the next). The palette is great.
No.9 – I really like the white colour, which I made using Titan buff and a touch of orange and magenta. It is the salmon-looking colour I have been using in the grid. It goes really well with green and brown.
Friday, 28th April
No.10 – This is a gear shift from the other paintings this week. It was such a beautiful day, so I decided to take some paper and paint down to the sea. Similar to the rain paintings last term, I then painted into the marks made by the water. There are still elements from the other paintings present, such as the horse, water, and carne motif. I’m not as keen on the palette, although I guess it suits this type of painting. I would be interested to see it with a palette like No.8. It was wonderful to paint with the sea, and I would like to do more of that over the summer.
Sunday, 30th April
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