Project 4 Themes and series - Painting 3 - Orchid Magnification

This third painting for assignment 5 was a very natural progression from the exercise in magnification which I worked on in this assignment. I really enjoyed getting stuck into working on the enlargement of the photograph which I had taken, the amount of detail to work from is amazing. I continued to explore the orchid theme in my sketchbooks and on loose leaf paper, and these further experiments are below.

Mixed Media Close up - using wax as an outline, followed by watercolour washes with fusible film and fusible fibres heat bonded and adhered to the page to give texture and light to the piece - A5

Wax resist with washes of watercolour and pen and ink detail - A5

Brusho sprinkled onto damp paper, then orchid image painted in chinese white - A4

Final Painting - mixed media orchid using watercolours fusible film and bibres with wax resist and watercolour. 

Orchid magnificatation - detail

I chose to create definition and distinctions between the various shapes within the whole using a fairly thick wax crayon. I like the linear separate outcome from this. I then ironed three separate components from fusible film, fusible fibre and finally a combination of the two to give differing elements to the whole. the painting does look very different depending on the light it is viewed in - so I have added another photograph below with a close up of the centre top element as I was careful to create a section with detail behind the fusible film which isn't clear in the photograph above.On the petals to the left and right I chose to use the hard lines of wet watercolour painted over a wash to give me my lines of the veins of the petals moving out from the centre of the bloom. i was keen here to keep the lines quite crisp and I think I achieved this through having only one wash underneath the lines radiating out from the centre. I am a bit sorry that I have only just come across the combination of fusible film with watercolour as a mixed media approach! I think there is a lot of potential here for exploration and its transparent nature gives scope for layering over watercolour images to give the suggestion of line veiled lightly by a semi opaque layer. Another aspect of this painting which I enjoyed is the outcome of the watercolour over the wax. the heavily saturated pigment settling between the texture in the paper and the wax resist is a wonderful effect, I am a bit concerned that this is an effect lost in the photography! I created a 3D effect in the dark centre of the flower by working into the edges of wet paint using a darker saturate mix which has give a feeling of shading to dark at the edges. Of the 5 paintings for this final assignment I feel this one best reflects my personality and my progress, its possible I have included too many different fusible film and fibre elements, and in the eyes of others it may not work at all, but I suppose that raises the question of who I am creating my art for? In all honesty this one was for me, and I am happy with that.