Table of Contents

Reflections

Putting in the time. My prior unit may have been rushed, but I think I took the opposite approach here — I spent too much time on too few works. In particular, exercise 5.1 ate up an inordinate amount of time as I built up layers and then sanded them down. If I had been more structured in my approach, I would have tackled other exercises in parallel — I’m bad at that, and that is an area I need to work on.

Looking at all the paintings done in this section, including the assignment, I can see my abilities have “levelled up.” I’m much more comfortable mixing colours and combining different techniques in a work. In particular exercise 5.1 has delivered something I think I can work with, going forward, when I have the time to work this way. Again, learning to work in parallel will assist here.

Essay writing is not something I’ve done in twenty years, though I do write many reports and documents in my day job. I found the word limit to be too short, but I understand why it is there. At some point, however, I have to accept that my edits have to be harsh to get down under the limit. Hopefully, in-line citations don’t count against word length. Re-reading (again) the essay, I think I got caught up in the art history and spent too little time looking at specific works.

Research

Research for this section can be found here

Essay: Encaustic

Essay for this section can be found here

Exercises

Exercise 5.1

I love purple veronica, and have masses of it in my front garden. It reminds me of the crazy plants drawn by Dr. Seuss. This was an exercise in layering, from washes that created rivulets, using monotracing techniques to draw lines, sandpaper to break dried layers and create physical texture and then building various transparent glazes up, and wiping back down again.

I think I could take this one further, but time is the enemy. I’d like to add more detail to the veronica to bring it even closer to the viewer. The plant has small green specks and details that would add to the visual interest.

Layering

I wanted to spend the time building transparent layers, with this exercise. This came from sitting in my garden, and just trying to see the depth between overgrown leaves.

My first path towards this is to the right. I like the effect of wiping down through layers, and building back up again. This process was repeated many times in this section, and in the assignment.

In particular, I started the final painting by pulling back in the paint wash I played with in the prior section. Using gamsol to break the wash up into rivulets, and then wiping areas, created an impression of foliage that I could work from. I kind of wish I had done this multiple times, letting the underlayers fully dry between. With venetian medium used as a glaze, and separator between layers, it might have produced some interesting effects. Something to look at later.


Ink and oil on panel

I do like the simplicity of this line and wash type sketch. Might pick this up again, in the future.

Exercise 5.2

This exercise was largely done from a coffee shop window, doing fast studies of the passing street scene. Later, I wandered to a park.

The ink sketches tell something of a story, looking from my phone with Instagram forever open on it, through to looking out the window at the pigeon deterrents, across the street and then at a restaurant opposite.


I painted some of my watercolour pieces on multiple pieces of paper. I liked the composite nature of the works, which then lead into some of the assignment.

Also, some of the resulting single pieces looked quite interesting, on their own.


daleks in the park

Exercise 5.3

There were renovations in my house over the summer, repairing and fixing the balcony. for a period of time, the railings were up, so there was just this space that walked off into the trees. This caught my attention for this exercise. On the day I painted, there was a lot of wind which I tried to suggest in looping brushstrokes.

Afternoon
Afternoon


It’s amazing how fast discouragement kicks in when things go a bit sideways. It’s a side effect, I think, of limited time. I need to learn to push through more or pivot when things get ‘ugly’. Anyway, the third one (evening) didn’t materialize. I got about this far, realized I was inverting the light in the sky, stopped to work on other things, and didn’t come back to it. I must have been tired, when I did this inversion. I can’t think of how I did it otherwise. I’m not a night person.

Exercise 5.4

This was the only result I liked. I used a very textured handmade paper, that I had sealed. It created interesting breaks in the paint. Subject matter was a jar of buff titanium pigment, and a crumpled white napkin on my desk. I like how the subtle green of the paper comes through.

Supplementary Material

Mentorship Follow-on

Unfinished study of Christian

My mentorship came to an end in August, and since then I’ve been looking at the techniques and how I can merge them into my process more organically. I’ve begun applying some of these ideas in the assignment. But here are some non-coursework related pieces.

Monotracing

Using the monotracing technique for transferring a sketch, to instead create a card. This card will hold one of the two cyanotype postcards created as part of another student’s project.

Social media silliness

A follower asked for a painting. I can see how what I learned in my mentorship changed the way I painted. From how I use warm/cool tones, to structure and so forth. Pretty pleased with the impact of the summer’s practice.