divergentpracticeclouston

[divergentpracticeclouston]

Gallery

This is my work on display in the gallery. I am satisfied that the long development process that produced many large paint covered pieces of work resulted in two relatively small and calm paintings.

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Studio

This post shows the final stage of my work on display for assessment in the studio space. Along with the finished pieces is the large amount of paint that was left on the floor, wall and my apron.

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Final piece development

For my final piece I decided I wanted to make one large painting which used less paint than my development work and which featured one prominent central strip of bright colour. To prepare for this I made two small paintings on black canvasses. I was very pleased with the results as one of the paintings featured elements I had not planned for, as the pools of wet paint created interesting shapes on the canvas. I attempted to recreate this effect on a large scale by painting on a large piece of cardboard. I placed the cardboard on the ground and placed other unfinished paintings on top of it to create a relatively narrow strip on the cardboard. This allowed an exposed strip to be covered with paint, along with the added advantage of some older unfinished paintings being reworked.

I was not very satisfied with the results as I felt that I had not successfully achieved the results that had worked well on a smaller scale. I decided to display the smaller paintings in the gallery as my final pieces of work.

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This post shows a process I was working on in which I placed a blank sheet of paper in the middle of a piece in progress and continued to paint. I then removed the new piece of paper which left a window like feature in the larger painting. I feel that this produced successful results and I may continue to develop this process.

Also shown in this post is the body of work I have produced up to this point on display in my studio space.

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This is how my work looked in the gallery space. Personally it was helpful as it allowed me to more closely see my work together. I was satisfied with how the work looked collectively and I wanted to continue the process by working on a larger scale and with different colours.

One idea I have going forward is to concentrate a lot of colour on one central strip of the surface. This will allow more negative space to be seen and may make the use of a lot of neon colour more impactful.

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My project is starting to develop and I can see my work changing from the original idea of paintings of Sweetheart Abbey into original abstract paintings.

This post shows the development, process and progress of my work. Some of my paintings are shown in various stages of development along with the process of continuing to work on paintings after I had originally decided they were finished. This allowed me to add more paint to finished work while I was simultaneously working on new paintings.

[divergentpracticeclouston]

Research

Callen Schaub (2020) Effusion

The work of Callen Schaub is an important inspiration for my work on this project. I admire his use of neon colours on a black background, and the way he applies the paint to the surface. In some cases he suspends a paint can above the canvas on the floor and allows the paint to splash across the surface as it goes. I have attempted to use this process as inspiration for this project so far and will continue to do so as it develops.

Some ideas I have for this project going forward include the following. I would like to make paintings not on a flat surface but rather a three dimensional object. I am unclear as to what that might be at this stage so I will have to develop this idea further.

After talking to Lorna she suggested some artists to research that might be relevant to my project.

Hellen Frankenthaler (1963) Blue Dance

John Hoyland (2001) The Frontier

John Hoyland (1981) Memory Mirror

Joan Mitchell (1994) Wood Wind, No Tuba

I have found looking at the work of these artists to be very useful. They all have elements of their work that I am attempting to include in my own work, like use of bright primary colours and working in an abstract way.

For this sketch I used pastels on black paper to give myself an idea of how I can develop this project and what I can work towards.

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For my Divergent Practice project I am going to produce paintings using my drawings of Sweetheart Abbey as a subject. My idea at this stage is to block out large areas of the piece in black paint, and fill in the detail of the subject with neon coloured paint. I am planning to apply the paint in an abstract way by splashing and dripping it onto the surface.

I started the process on Wednesday by testing how the paint would move on the paper and how it would respond to being splashed and dripped. I found instantly that the acrylic paint I was using did not move as fluidly as I would have liked so I added water to it. This caused the paint to be a lot more diluted than I wanted and I lost a lot of the bright colour I was looking for. The below painting on the left started as an experiment for using the paint. I applied neon orange paint to orange paper. I placed the paper on the ground and dripped the diluted paint onto the paper. The paint settled in puddles so I spread it across the paper with a pallet knife to cover more of the surface. I set up the blue coloured paper next it on the floor and continued this process with both sheets of paper. I also opened up my black paper sketchbook and included that in the process. I thought some aspects of this process were successful, namely the combination of the neon orange paint and blue paper, and the ability to work on three paintings at the same time. I pinned the blue painting to my wall and applied more paint, allowing it to drip down the surface.

Yesterday I wanted to continue the work I had been doing to work out a way to mix colours satisfactorily and have the paint drip down the paper. I hung up the blue painting on the wall and started by filling with water a nearly empty tube of orange paint and pricking a small hole in it so the paint would leak out on to the sheet. This still wasn't producing the effect I wanted. I tried to solve this by hanging a white sheet of paper on the line in my space. I used red paint and squirted it in large amounts on the paper. The result was that the paint stuck quite thickly to the surface and dripped down slowly. I then smeared the paint across the paper in small sections. These results were satisfying and more in the direction I was looking for. I added more orange paint and black to this piece and I was very satisfied with the results. I placed yellow and blue sheets on the ground to catch the dripping paint and these became new pieces I was working on . The blue painting caught some nice red and purple colours but was unfortunately obliterated when I added black paint. The yellow painting also produced similar results so I learned a lesson to stop with a painting when I was happy with it. I decided to leave the white painting at the stage it was at and I am going to use this as the starting point for the next stage of my work while I develop this process.

The bottom left painting is another sheet placed on the ground to catch paint, and I will use this as the beginning of another painting. The photo on the bottom right shows where paint has dripped down on to the wall and paper on the floor.