For this exercise, I wanted to create a simple narrative that was self explanatory, but something that had little detail. Whilst thinking of different scenarios, I imagined a pregnant mother not knowing the sex of her child and having bought something in pink and blue, not knowing which she will be using. Luckily, as I have previously mentioned, i have often used Croquis Cafe, and the happened to have a pregnant model, who stood in the perfect stance, holding her belly with both hands covered by a shawl. For my narrative however, I knew that I wanted to change the position of one of the hands so that the lady would be holding one colour up whilst looking down at the other. I also knew that I wanted to create a simple monochrome painting with only the pink and blue showing, as I thought it would have much more impact, and also a clearer story line.
With this piece, I have left it unfinished as I want to be able to set set the scene the best that I can and so I want to wait, instead of rushing into it and painting an interior that isn’t going to work with the subject.
After speaking with my tutor, I realised that I had no idea of what I exactly wanted to do with this piece and so I decided to start on a new piece, but to keep an aspect of babies and infancy within the piece. With this I actually thought about my 8 month old niece, Ruby, and what babies actually spend there time doing, as any photo or scene with a baby is a story in itself. Therefore, when Ruby came round to our house for a day, I produced a few quick sketches of what she did throughout the day from sleeping, to feeding and cuddling with my mum. Whilst doing so, I realised that there had never been a photograph of me feeding Ruby, and so out of the quick sketches, I took to the feeding sketch, which I thought would tell a beautiful, simple narrative, between an aunt and her niece. Using a photograph taken of Ruby being fed and one of myself looking down towards something, I made a couple of quick sketches to figure out how the two figures would look and where their eyes would be in order to make a connection, as well as a swatch palette of the possible colours I would use in the composition.
With the final piece shown below, I feel this is much more successful than my previous idea, with it being both personal and clear with it’s story. I do believe that the lilac in the background rather clashes with the other colours in the fabric, but I believe the combination of the tan, pink, khaki and violet go very well together. With the style of the piece, I wanted to try something different, and I believe that the layering colours and brush strokes of the fabric worked better than actually blending every stroke of the piece. With the faces came a certain difficulty as it appears that I painted each in a different style, which definitely needs correcting. Apart from the faces, I believe this piece works extremely well as a narrative, as it is both clear as to the story and also personal with a sentimental touch for myself.
SOPHIE FAWCETT'S OCA LEARNING LOG 