Category: Term 2

I began my project focusing on Leicester as at the time of the start of this project, lockdown was still looming and we had to work from home wherever possible. This led me to the conclusion that I should focus on a place I have easy access to and that wouldn’t cause mw to get into trouble with the police or authorities.

At the start of my second year, I did a project focusing on Cornwall, paying close attention to my uses of colour and shapes. I thoroughly enjoyed that project and felt that I started to get a great foundation and idea that was executed well. Therefore, I decided to approach my project this term in the same manner, the only difference being that I was focusing on Leicester rather than Cornwall.

Due to teaching being online, I had no access to my studio which made scale a difficulty and so I stuck to a small size of A4 in general, the biggest pieces being A3. Although I would have worked bigger if I had the chance, I still feel that I managed to capture Leicester well at the size I was working with.

As I live in Leicester I was able to go out and draw from life, which I didn’t get the chance to do with my Cornwall project in term one and so I worked from photos a lot then. I captured a lot of primary evidence in forms of quick drawings and detailed drawings to give myself a large range of imagery to develop throughout this project.

When it came to colour, I started off quite simple with mundane colours and built up to more experimental uses of colour as my ideas developed and I progressed in the project. A lot of my uses of colour and colour palettes came from my artist research. I decided to do this so that the colours I was using were informed and not purely random as I feel it is always appropriate to identify why you make certain decisions in your work. As all of the artists I researched approach their colour uses in different ways, I had a lot of ways to approach the use of colour in my own work.

I began doing paintings by working over sketches in my sketchbook to get some ideas and more solid foundations to develop later on. I even started exploring uses of bold colours in my sketchbook to see how compositions would be affected.

The crit helped me to identify areas to improve as well as areas to develop further as they were working well. A key area I was told to change was to start breaking out of my sketchbook and use my initial drawings/paintings/studies to combine in different ways or use as foundations to explore colour palettes. One of the ideas I explored was to combine different streets together to create ‘hybrid’ buildings which I felt worked really well with block colours and small details.

I worked onto paper and cardboard with my favourite being high quality fabriano paper as it holds paint well and doesn’t warp easily. With the covid situation, this was also the best idea as I didn’t have the facilities or equipment to make canvases and I didn’t want to waste money on buying bad quality canvases. Overall, I feel the materials used worked out really well as acrylic paints apply quite nicely to fabriano paper. In addition to this, I used paint pens and ink pens to add small details by layering which is something I have always enjoyed as you can so easily change the outcome of a flat painting by adding lines or sketchy details over the top.

As I need to select 10 images for my final assessment, I decided to go through all the work I have completed for this project and select the ones I feel are most effective. I wanted to include more mundane colour palettes as well as the bolder colour palettes as I wanted to show my development and demonstrate how my contextual research has influenced my work.

This is a painting of De Montfort University buildings which feature quite a warm colour palette. I like the fact that each section is a bold flat colour and the way the lines work with the colours. Are used a white paint pen to add detail as I struggled to do this with the brushers that I had. Although I like the composition of this image; I feel that other works are more developed, and this is more and experimentation/ exploration of colour palettes and the way this affects compositions.

This is a painting I did of a historical building on Aylestone Road in Leicester. I decided to use a colour palette inspired by one of my artist research (). I feel that the pastel shades work well with the building an add a sense of modernity to a historical building. I like that this is quite simple and that I didn’t overwork the painting by adding too much detail. The colours used work well with the composition and I am glad that I only did a section of the building as this framing adds to the overall impact of the image.

This is a painting I did inspired by one of Richard Diebenkorn’s painting colour palettes. I did this to identify colours that work well together to allow myself to create links with the artists I have researched and to develop my work and push it to the next level. Although the colours used a mundane, I like the ways that they work together and the fact that there are different shades of certain colours such as grey as this great contrast which draws the eye of the viewer. I am glad I included the street name as this makes the place more identifiable and including a call was interesting as it linked more to the people living in the area rather than just the building itself. I’m very happy with the result of this painting and I like the composition.

This is a painting of a view of my neighbour’s garden from my back garden. I liked the composition of this image as it included a lot of different buildings which allowed me to use a wide colour palette. this is a painting in which I used a bright colour palette with autumnal shades such as reds, browns, oranges, and yellows. I feel that this colour palette works very well with the composition and is very eye catching. Adding small lines onto the flat colours really added to the result and I’m very happy with this painting.

This is a smaller painting I did featuring the end of a street and some lamp posts. I like the fact that included a segment of a no entry sign as this is something we all see in our day to day lives. again the colour palette is quite simple on this image and fairly normal but I am very happy with the composition and the amount of detail I have captured in a simplistic manner. I like the amount of contrast this painting has and I feel it fits in well with my project.

This is another painting I did of a street on Aylestone Road with traffic lights. I took inspiration for the colour palette from George Shaw and again although the colour palette is rather normal I really like the ways that the colours work together as this ads to the piece. I feel that this painting also relates to Piet Mondrian’s work as there are lots of squares and rectangular shapes, the only difference being the colours used. I feel that the traffic lights add to the composition and are something that everyone encounters in their day to day lives.

This is a painting of a view of Upperton Road which features a lot of black lines. I am considerably happy with the composition, and I did find this painting difficult to do at first but it did pay off. I like how simplistic it is yet it manages to portray a lot of detail as I added thin lines and details with an ink pen. This painting is quite small which I think works well for its composition and I feel the shades of colours used work well together. The pale grey sky reminds me of L.S Lowry’s paintings which is relevant.

This is a painting I did of a view if my neighbours house from my back garden. I took inspiration for the colour palette from a James Rosenquist painting which explains why the colours are so bold. I feel that all the colours used work well together but I felt that it was too bright for my liking, so although I like it I feel that it is just an experimentation piece to see how far I could take the colours before it became too much. I like that this painting is a build up of flat shapes as this works well overall.

This is another painting I did of a view from my back garden which includes parts of my neighbours house. I used a bright colour palette for this painting and avoided using black as I feel that black sometimes takes away from the colours and becomes too graphic. I instead used a dark purple for the darkest areas and lines which I feel was a great decision. I like that this painting consists of flat coloured shapes that build up to create an interesting composition.

In this painting from my back garden of a different angle, I really like the ways the bright colours work together yet contrast in areas as it pulls the viewer in. Though simple, this painting is really effective and I like the Pop Art vibes it gives off.

Though I like the colour palette of this painting, something feels off to me, it may be the composition but I am glad I did this piece as it shows my development of ideas and the ways that I have considered a range of colour palettes throughout this project to see what works well. Again, I like that I didn’t rely on black to outline the drawing as I feel that could have been too much.

This is yet another view from my garden which features a fence that separates different houses. I like the colours that I have used in this painting and the ways the white highlights create a contrast with the darker areas. I used a lot of layering in this painting which I really enjoyed and I feel I captured it well.

This is a view I had from a street of Leicester college which I liked as it included a range of different buildings. I used a fairly simple colour scheme, with the lightest colour used being yellow and then I stuck with dark colours such as blacks, blues and purples. Again, I like that this painting is quite simple yet it is easy to see what the painting is of. I am happy with the composition and final result of this painting.

In this painting, I wanted to see what I could achieve with a black, grey and white colour scheme. Though initially challenging, I feel this painting paid off and was a good exploration as it bridges between normal colours and really bright colours. This was a refreshing piece to do and made me more excited to continue progressing with this project.

This is another painting of a view on Aylestone Road and I used a colour palette inspired by George Shaw. I felt that The greens worked really well with the browns and adding the shop signs and number sign to the top of the building made it more recognisable which I liked. I added highlights with white which I feel brings the painting together and overall I am very impressed with this painting.

This is a small painting of a house on Aylestone Road and I made it more of a sketchy painting rather than too precise. I like the ways that the colours work to attract the eye of the viewer. In addition, I feel that the shade of blue I used for the sky works well with the other colours used and is very balanced.

I am very happy with this painting in which I combined two pages of my sketchbook of different streets to create a ‘hybrid’ building. From looking at this image, it is so hard to notice that there are two different places combined as it looks so realistic which I am a fan of. I could have done this painting with more out there colours but I felt the need to see how it would turn out with everyday colours. If I had more time, I would do another version of this painting using brighter colours to see how colour can affect the composition.

Final selected 10 images to put onto PowerPoint:

I felt that I needed to do more paintings exploring the colours I am using as most of my others were quite experimental. I also felt that I needed to increase the amount of paintings I have done so that I can demonstrate a body of work.

I did this A3 sized painting by combining photocopies of two of my sketchbook pages and sticking them together, making sure to align the black pipe as this was just misaligned within the sketchbook.

I decided to switch the positions of the individual pieces as I preferred the layout overall but I am incredibly happy with it.

I stuck to what would be considered a ‘normal’ colour palette as I wanted to try out the composition before going too experimental. If I have time, I am hoping to do another of the same piece but with a different colour scheme as I am really happy with how this turned out. Though the colour scheme is quite mundane, I feel that it effectively relates to George Shaw’s colour palette which is still a relevant link.

These are some paintings I have been working on inspired by George Shaw’s use of colour and Piet Mondrian. I am hoping to add more detail to them and build them up more to ensure they are very effective. I have thoroughly been enjoying doing these paintings and I like including road signs and traffic lights as these things make the paintings more relatable to everyday life.

I decided to link some of my paintings, particularly colour schemes, to the contextuals I have researched throughout this project. Although I feel this is appropriate to do to show obvious links between my work and my inspirations, I feel that this could help me choose colour palettes for my more developed pieces down the line which could make my work more effective.

James Rosenquist inspired colour palettes:

I started out using some of James Rosenquist’s paintings as colour palette inspirations. I started out with him as he did a lot of Pop Art which uses a lot of abstract colours and I felt this would push my work to very interesting outcomes. I started out by photocopying some of my sketches from my sketchbook at an A4 size and used alcohol markers to form a rough outline of the paint colours I want to apply to each section.

First James Rosenquist inspired colour palette:

Second James Rosenquist inspired colour palette:

Third James Rosenquist inspired colour palette:

Richard Diebenkorn inspired colour palettes:

I decided to do colour palettes inspired by Richard Diebenkorn as his work uses a lot more realistic colours that are true to everyday life, with a lot of greens and grey shapes building up his interesting compositions. I took photos of the finished paintings I did with flash and without flash as the lighting affected how the colours worked together. I feel that taking colour inspiration from my contextuals is the best idea as I already know that the colours work well together, there is no trial and error.

First Richard Diebenkorn inspired colour palette:

Second Richard Diebenkorn inspired colour palette:

Third Richard Diebenkorn inspired colour palette:

Reflection of this exercise:

I feel that doing paintings with colour palettes inspired by my contextuals was effective as it allowed me to explore different colour combinations without having to randomise the colours I selected. I also enjoyed finding paint colour swatches from a paint book to put next to the paintings when I was photographing them to inform the colours I used. I was very happy with the colour palettes and the ways they affected my drawings and compositions. I also explored the amounts of details I added, making some of the paintings simple and others more developed. I would do this exercise again in the future to help me build up an extensive list of colour palettes that I can use earlier on in the project so that I build up a bigger body of paintings.

I realised that there were pieces in my sketchbook which were incomplete and so I dedicated some time finishing them. I felt this would allow me to show a connection between my early drawings and sketches, and my more refined work as those stages were lacking.

For some of my pencil drawings which were quite light, I went over them with markers and paint. I also added colour to some of my sketches in order to explore what works well.

I feel that I should explore colour palettes within my sketchbook making links to the artists I have researched this term and using a colour wheel in order to ensure I use the most effective colour palettes.

I felt that I didn’t have enough sketches to continue my work with and so I went to Aylestone Road and did some quick sketches of different architecture and houses from different angles. I made sure to make these as quick as possible with harsh lines as I feel that I sometimes waste time adding more detail than is necessary.

I feel that these sketches will help me create some interesting pieces as I continue in this project. I like that they aren’t perfect as I can always adjust proportions down the line.

As some of the previous drawings went through the pages, I decided to paint the reverse side black so that I could do more line drawings to build upon in my more developed pieces later on. I used white paint pens to draw on top of the black backgrounds, and I felt the final effect of this was great.