Sunday 15 July 2012

Project 7: Townscape with Buildings and Figures.

Didn’t have the time to finish the piece before the hand in date.

Due to the college course coming to its end I have no option but to hand the project in. I have not completed the Final Design to the best of my capabilities. I will continue with this piece of work during the summer holidays but for now below is the Final Piece, please read the evaluation for more information.























Evaluation:

Unfortunately the college course will be ended soon and I feel I have taken this project as far as I possibly can with the remaining allocated time…

There are two reason why this project has taken longer than expected, the first one is I did my final design with Oil Paints. This is my first painting with Oil Paints and I wasn’t sure how long it would take to dry. Sometimes I enjoyed working wet on wet but at other times I wanted the oil paints to dry quicker which of course it didn’t. The second and most important factor is that my mum passed away during this project and it took me five weeks before I could even think about picking up a paint brush. I feel if I had a couple of extra weeks I could finish this project of to a high standard but I don’t have the time as I should be well into the next project by now so at the moment finishing the project isn’t an option. 

I took a couple of days out to go to Manchester and Stockport to take photographs for research. For myself I found it hard to sketch on location whilst interfering people were walking by, I don’t like working in front of strangers and nothing will stop the feeling I get when I do. I believe I full filled the criteria well at least for the research part primary and also secondary, however yet again I did far too much of it. Everything I collected, drew, researched and took photographs off came in handy so maybe I wouldn’t have come to the same outcome if I didn’t do all the research I did.

I did use a number of mediums during the course, watercolour, acrylic, pencil, Conte Crayons and eventual I got round to choose Acrylic for my final piece. However I tried to be loser with the brush strokes and this ended up badly. In the end I actually went through the canvas when I was trying to remove some of the really impasto paint. This is the first time I have ever ruined a painting when using acrylic paints, usually I love then medium but this time it was like I had never painted before. I don’t know if losing my mum had something to do with it or if the reason was that I was trying to paint in a style which I love but can’t seem to master. I usually paint carefully and go for details but this time I didn’t want to paint this way, eventually I had to start again after wasting a week or so doing the other painting.

 I had done a couple of studies with oil paints so I decided to go mad and try and do my final piece with oil paints on a A1 Canvas Panel. I had not used oil paints before apart from doing one monochrome still life, when I think about it was rather a risky choice as I don’t really know the medium; I’m just dipping my toe in and the moment. Just because I enjoyed doing a couple of small oil painting studies doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. I took the risk and I believe if I had a bit longer I would have completed the project, half of the time I spent waiting for it to dry.

I’m happy with the photograph I decided to use and also with all the buildings I added which I couldn’t see in the original photograph as they were slightly hidden by the angle. If I did the project again I would finalize the drawing on tracing paper first before transferring it the Canvas Panel then making the changes on the Canvas which is what I did. The marks that the Graphite paper left behind couldn’t be properly erased without leaving smudges. I consider the final piece at the moment only around 85% completed. 

Would I change anything, well of course and I will be doing as soon as time permits. I think I did well with the characters that I choose which where all found in the photographs I took. In the studies I just added any figure without even looking for them, some of the characters will be recognizable to some viewers I’m sure of it. The one thing that let me down is my technical ability when using oil paints, if I’m honest I don’t really have a clue what I’m doing with them. I would like to take time out and start learning and practicing with oil paints just to get use to them. I would also like to loosen up with the style I paint in but I’m really finding this really hard to do.

I feel if I had another week on the project I could iron all the bits out I’ve not got around to finish yet and I could make this a good portfolio piece. I have learnt a lot with this project with experimenting and not being afraid to try something that I don’t normally do. I have produced a decent or on the way to be decent painting, hopefully I will get a chance to complete the picture.

I think one of my favourite bits was using oil paints I’m sure this medium will become my favourite medium and over take my love for acrylic paints. The thing I don’t like about them is how long they take to dry, at first I was getting the paint everywhere, everything I painted I ending up smudging. The worst thing about the project was going through the canvas after all that hard work I put into making the final piece with the acrylic paint. 

Overall I’m very happy I have chosen this brief to do as my project, I’m sure I will be delighted with the outcome when I get around to actually completing the picture. I believe I have fulfilled every part of the brief to my best ability, the loss of my mother hit me hard and at the time I just couldn’t get back into this brief it at all. I’m glad with the outcome of the final piece well at the moment, I’m also happy I have started to use a new medium which I’ve had lying around since Christmas that I didn’t have the bottle to use.
 

DON'T FORGET TO CLICK THE IMAGES AGAIN ONCE THEY HAVE LOADED FOR A LARGER IMAGE...

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