Crits – Discussing the tape

I told everyone in the crit that originally the tape wasn’t meant to be part of my final piece. I used it because my first painting was only supposed to be a tester and it was a quick and easy way to get straight lines. However after completing it I decided it work really well, if I had taken it off they would have just been paintings. My tutors also agreed that it worked really well by leaving it on so I adopted this method in all five paintings. I think the bit of paint left on the edges and smudged bits adds another personal touch, like the fact you can see that I am right handed because the paint is smudged on the right and you can see what colours I used and the mistakes I made.

The response the tape got in the crit was great. I was afraid that they would think it just made them look messy and unprofessional but they agreed that the tape and extra paint bits added something.

Layout

As all my painting where the same size they looked good lined up all together. I have been asked why I didn’t put maybe one separate or do a big one to go with them.
I suppose I could have done a large piece however I prefer to work small and having them small is support to bring people in to look at them.
Furthermore placing them all together in the exhibition mean that a view can stand back to look at them as one piece and also come closer to view the individually.

Crits – Discussing the size

During my crit I was asked why I decided to do them small. I explained that because I have always preferred working in sketchbook that I have developed a personal connection to small pieces of work. I still like large paintings but for this project it was more suitable. Because they are small it mean that the viewer has to get up close to the paintings to appreciate them which hopefully invites them in instead of walking straight past and only giving them a glace.

I was very pleased that everyone agreed with this, they all said that from a far they thought that my paintings were pictures and that they had to get up close to realise they were paintings.

Under glass

My decision to put my paintings in frames instead of hanging came about because it look better and more professional in the exhibition than I think hanging them would have. During crits it was mentioned by a few people in their comments that the reflection in the glass actually added to the piece. I hadn’t given this any thought before, but they said that because you had to get up close to the paintings when looking at the you could see your own reflection looking back at you. My first thought was that maybe this was quite annoying, like when your trying to watch telly but cant see past your own face. However they said differently, apparently because they can see their reflection it makes them feel like they are apart of the painting or one person said it was like going through a tunnel. It just shows how helpful crits can be because it makes you look at things you didn’t think of before, such at the reflection.

Mistake

When I brought my five paintings into to college for the deadline I accidentally smudged one of the paintings as i didn’t realize it was still wet. This meant that i had to wait for it to dry and correct the mistakes in college. This was easier than I thought as when I added some turpentine    the top layer of paint lifted slightly so I could blend more paint into it.

Chosen Images

Again I found it helpful to draw out the general compositions in my sketchbook, this helped me narrow my  selection down to about 8 or 9.

 I then set out to paint my favourites. I want to complete at least 2 more paintings maybe even 3 to leave room for error, then I would be able to hang 3 for the exhibition. I have been told that odds numbers tend to be better when it comes to exhibitions and I agree, this way there’s is one in the middle and the paintings on either side which looks better in the end.

The Manchester Tram Station

Finally I found the same tram station as my painting. Although it was a bit too early and the sun was still really high in the sky. I didn’t have to wait long for the sun to lower so I took as many photos as I could of compositions I thought might look good. I also tried stepping back and including some of the oncoming trams like I did when I took photos in accrington.

This is a selection of the photographs I took that day as there are around 60 all together:

                  

These where my favourite of the images, the rest where simply variations of the same view.

Size – Gill Rocca

I was worried about the size of my paintings, originally I had decided I wanted to do one or a few large pieces but then my idea changed. I still wanted to convey a melancholy, lost and isolated feeling however I found a more suitable way for me to do this. Overall I prefer to work small, mostly in sketchbooks, so painting a small view of a feeling feels a lot more personal to me. I went to seek advice from Richard and Jamie.

They introduced me to an artist named Gill Rocca.

She creates beautiful dream like landscapes usually in oil:

The ones that they wanted me to concentrate on were her miniatures. They are equally as beautiful as her larger paintings if not more so. Bellow:

These small paintings are poised between reality and fantasy, they are created using her memory and imagination and set in large frames. Even thought they are small they are still wonderful paintings and to me are even more personal than the larger ones.

Trying different locations

Until I can get back to Manchester for more images there, I decided it was worth take photos of a station that was easier for me to get to. My closest train station is Accrington. Unfortunately for me it was raining very heavily but I managed to stick it out for about 20 minutes to wait for a train to come by. These were the resulting images:

There’s something about these photos that’s lacking but I’m not sure what it is. It could be the time of day, the fact that the sky in very plain, that there are no overhead wires or just the location. I did like the yellow front of the train as it first appeared on the track, however I think it is best if I collect the right images before starting another painting.

With and without tape

I decided to see fully what my painting would look like without the duck tape around the edges. I am positive that it looks better with the tape, as I saw one edge without, but have decided to include it in my blog to fully document my decisions.

I have simply cropped a picture of the painting to show what it would look like without the tape.