This post contains my final five paintings for Assignment 5
The series is titled Rescued
There are a number of reasons for my choosing this title. I have not always felt emotionally engaged with the work I have produced during the watercolour module, and if I have the emotion has been disappointment or stress with my output. My choice of subject matter for this final assignment has I think rescued the watercolour module for me, in addition all of the plants I have chosen have been rescued, close to death on a reduced shelf in the garden centre, desperate for water and care. Seeing how they bloom and transform with a little consideration is something I find wonderful. I also think this echoes my own journey, redundancy took me from the dry earth of my corporate career and has allowed me to branch out and really develop my creative side and experience this wonderful journey of the Textiles Degree pathway. I think working to produce a series has been a real challenge, but an enjoyable one. Initially my idea was to work on orchids solely but as I spent time in the evenings sketching I couldn't help but diversify my choice of subject matter! I felt the opportunity to use various different techniques was more open to me with the use of other plants, and perhaps working on orchids solely would have been a little too limited? Its hard to tell how it would have turned out to focus on the orchids alone, its tempting to go and paint a further two orchid interpretations to replace the Christmas Cactus and Hibiscus Bloom paintings but I am happy to submit assignment five as the journey itself and how my ideas developed as I worked on it.
I have tried to remain positive while struggling particularly with the landscape elements of this course, painting these plants and flowers has really revived my original enthusiasm for watercolour painting. I have also attempted to reflect back on my previous work while completing this assignment, and recall and review techniques learned in previous assignments, and I have also been quite surprised at myself for the approach and scale of the final painting! (Orchid collage)
I can see clear progress in my work, from the early experiments where I followed the required exercises to the letter! I think these early paintings are fairly clumsy and lacking in emotion, and at the outset of the course I already thought I would "paint" using watercolours. Its strange that my final projects focussed so heavily on the orchid, as this was the subject of my first still life composition for Assignment 1, I can really see how my painting and use of the watercolour medium has been refined as I have moved through the course (Yellow Orchid). I do feel however that at times I have felt constrained by the way the course is written with a heavy focus on a classic approach, and I feel I have only really truly enjoyed the final assignment with the emphasis exploration, experimentation and abstraction (I am actually quite surprised that I enjoyed the abstraction section!).
The processes I have found most beneficial have been the approach of using a number of preparatory sketches and paintings to prepare for the final painting, and how these experiments and in depth observation can really affect the final outcome, and can have some surprising discoveries along the way. I really hope to continue to use these approaches as I progress to Level 2 Textiles. Another significant learning which is not related to the course content as such is that it is not really possible for me to study two course modules alongside each other. I started this module at the same time as Textiles Exploring Ideas and very quickly found that very different approaches were needed for each course (my tutor has never see my work in the flesh for watercolour, for textiles everything has been posted for review) so it came to the point where I had to stop the watercolour to focus on the Textiles then return to the watercolour to complete it.
As I review my work overall for this module the paintings I have enjoyed most have been the "freer" sketches using pen and ink and watercolour while painting fairly quickly. I also really enjoyed my own "exercise" of Hyacinth30 which I feel really enabled me to develop to observation skills and was key in re-igniting my enthusiasm for watercolour painting. http://hyacinth30.blogspot.co.uk/
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| Christmas Cactus - Masking Fluid, Alizairin Crimson Tonal Study |
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| Christmas Cactus - Detail |
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| Christmas Cactus - Detail |
Painting 2 - Hibiscus bloom A3
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| Hibiscus Bloom - Yellow Brusho, Chinese White and Alizairin Crimson watercolour |
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| Hibiscus Bloom - Detail |
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| Hibiscus Bloom - Detail |
Painting 3 - Orchid magnification A3
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| Orchid Magnification - Watercolour, Wax resist, fusible film and fusible fibre |
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| Orchid Magnification - Detail |
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| Orchid magnification - detail |
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| Orchid magnification - detail |
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| Orchid Magnification - detail |
Painting 4 - Yellow orchid A3
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| Yellow orchid - Ink & watercolour |
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| Yellow orchid - detail |
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| Yellow orchid - detail |
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| Yellow orchid - detail |
Painting 5 - Orchid collage A1 Watercolour Board
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| Orchid Collage - Brusho, paper collage, wax resist, oil pastel, indigo watercolour |
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| Orchid collage - detail |
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| Orchid collage - detail |
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| Orchid collage - detail |
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| Orchid collage - detail |
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