Week 7

Proposal plan for this week was:
Design sheets/ samples.
Experiment toward final ideas
Mixed media samples
One-to-one tutorial
Reflective diary and peer assessment

I have pretty much stuck to my plan this week. Starting by producing a painting mixing acrylics with PVA glue and sand to add texture. The colours are very vibrant: blood red sky to suggest waring and danger. The other contrasting colours were used because I felt it was important to bring out a jarring effect. I used a green in the base of the painting, which initially had been a different colour but it didn't give sufficient clarity.
The painting contains a large figure, huddled up and foetal like. I tried to express anxiety by using textural brush marks. Other figures include skeletons for barbarism and a priest, as well as coffins for foreboding..
It is A1 sized and the brush marks and tones are quite good and I am pleased with the composition. Overall it is very symbolic and expressive. It speaks very much of the nature of crisis, which was my aim.

The second work is mixed media using collage and paint. Again it is symbolic, a merry-go-round of soldiers, coffins and medals which all end up in the same place! It has a blood red sky, bright and vibrant, and links to Shakespeare verse IV, 2 form King John which speaks about war and blood red skies. It is only by clearing contradictions that a clear image is revealed. I feel that Shakespeare understood human nature better than most.

As planned I also started working on my final piece. It is an oil painting and I am working on the sky for the background. Although it is time consuming I find it enjoyable and satisfying. You can move the paint round a lot, it is a lovely media and slow drying so you  can remove mistakes.
My painting is based on a sample that I produced last week and focuses on independent actions of the people, in terms of the storming of barricades and the desire to find something better on the other side. The underlying message is that we cannot go on the way we are. People can no longer live the way they did, they have to find another way and challenge the system. In my work I am trying to point out that we must recognise that people will not put up with the lack of future prospects. I want to speak about the issues that face society and raise the level of social consciousness.
I might alter the original composition, so that the final piece contains a wall rather than a fence so it can display graffiti with slogans of discontent, revolution and maybe questions. I plan to experiment with this next week so may original plan might change radically.

Sample that my final piece is based on.

I have also started to experiment with mixed media mixing pastel, paint and collage and want to experiment with these further particularly looking at the graffiti element of the final piece.

This week I feel that I have been thrown by the day off college and felt a bit lost. Despite this, I have enjoyed experimenting with collage and plan to continue to work in this way whilst also continuing to work on my oil painting next week. I also intend to work on a montage plan that was suggested by my tutor as a way of displaying several of my samples as a finished piece arranged in a tile like fashion for the exhibition. Initially I was skeptical about this plan but after some thought I think it is a very good idea as it shows how different types of conflict interlink through a number of studies in different media combined to produce another final piece. I have developed this idea on my own to select images and display them so that some will be raised from the surface of the page at different heights. I plan to experiment and see how this evolves.