ASSIGNMENT FOUR

For my assignment in Part four, I wanted to take the technique of the last exercise and take a photograph and make it my own as I found this to be a great way of creating a painting, but also once again use the Yorkshire Moors as my subject, as it is home to my favourite authors, the Bronte’s. After finding a photograph of the Derwent Salt Cellar, I began to produce two linear studies, one of how my own composition would look like, and the other how the composition would look like in a square frame, even though I would be working 81cm x 61cm.

The next stage was to create tonal studies in both payne’s grey and sepia, as well as a colour study. It was only till the point where I painted the colour study and realised the colours were very similar to some of the artists who I had researched in the atmospheric landscapes, and saw how the combination had a fairy-like feel about it. Realising this, I wanted to keep this look for my painting and give it a connection to a bright and cheerful atmosphere.

The last step before starting on the canvas was to swatch the colours that I wanted to use and quickly sketch the composition using the squaring up technique that helped me with the photograph exercise, so that the sketching on top of the canvas would be easier.

Whilst beginning the painting, I was trying to copy the photograph, and had produced the background well to match the photograph, but as I began the foreground my style changed to a more abstract, original style that I actually preferred and wanted to  continue with, and so I made a quick line drawing of how I would paint the rest of the landscape. When finishing the foreground I then went back and amended the background so that the styles would matched, and the last thing to add were the clouds, which quite spontaneously create a crocodile on the left and a dragon on the right.

With my finished painting that is shown above, I am extremely pleased with it, as the style is unconventional, and the bright colours have created my aim of a fairy tale like landscape. Whilst examining my work, I also realised that there was a slight resemblance to Paul Nash’s work who I admire regarding the shapes and lighting created in his compositions.

In the future, I would like to explore this style more as it was just how I naturally painted when given freedom and not a restrictive criteria to follow, but would definitely consider using oils and darker, bruised and richer colours, supposed to bright childlike colours.