Larger Scale paintings

This week I have decided to gather all my current experiment ideas together in order to begin painting large scale, focusing on a specific photograph. I have gotten to a point where my style is independent and personal to me, however my artist still have a high influence on my work, as it is through their style experimentations I was able to discover ideas and style's of my own.

To begin with I used two photographs for this set of work (bellow) is a scenery of the sea side in Lithuania, and a image of a river in a woodland area. As I have done before, I am more concerned and interested in the light and colours that this surrounding creates my idea was to create two sets of board paintings of the same image. Both of which are strongly focusing on my theme however for my first paining I tried to choose colours very similar and realistic as to the ones in the photograph (this in a way representing a more realistic image of the landscape) however for my second painting I have edited the colours of the photograph to make them have a stronger contrast with colours which are unrealistic and unusual for the environment, quite similarly as Vytautas Kasiulis changes colours in his paintings creating his own world of art. The idea of editing the photograph and then painting according to that distorted reality, is express and emphasise feeling or memories towards a certain place which change over time, and become less clear as to precise details, and in a way the first painting should reflect what we may see and remember from looking at a photograph, and the second edited painting is what we remember and feel ourself.

 This is the original photograph used as inspiration for my second painting
And bellow are two edited images of this photograph, which are distorted in shapes and colours.

For my first painting I began by preparing the board, by applying acrylic paint over an old background to get a clean background. I then started to focus on the sky for which I used  blue acrylic paint which I tinted when I needed lighter shades. At first I applied quite smooth straight lines of various shades of blue, that were quite defined yet not flowing together, hence I decide to use a technique which i previously have used with Joseph M.W. Turner inspired work of using a damp sponge and white acrylic paint to dab and blend as well as smooth the paint together, This was very useful technique as it made the sky look more realistic and in depth, yet smooth and flowing.

I then continued my painting, by staring to focus on the section of the sea which is hitting the coast. In comparison the colour of the water has a lot of different colours and undertones that the light reflects. Hence I started off by applying purple and green coloured tones as the base, once again blending them in with a sponge, using different shades of blue acrylic paint, I went through this process several times, as I aimed to built up the tones, to get that deeper blue sea colour. It was harder when it came to painting the waves, as in the photo they are quite sharply defined adding dimensions to the whole image. However because my theme and style of painting consist on the idea of general light,texture and colour, I wasn't focused about recreating perfect sharply defined waves, but instead used some light acrylic paint to highlights specific areas where the waves are more defined. In result the painting still consists of blurriness of unclear landscape, yet displays beauty of light and colour conveying detail from a different perspective.

This whole process of layering tones and colours does have some rebalance to the way Turner used to paint. As he used to paint over areas of his detailed paintings to perfect them, which in result lead to overbuilt amount of media, causing the detail to be change and slightly distorted making the painting look more ambiguous and unclear. Even so Turner was doing so to create a painting that represented his thoughts and ideas the strongest, emphasising that perfection and beauty of a painting is all down to what the Artist sees as perfect, and that viewers should think outside the box because any kind of painting has perfection of its own in the eyes of the Artist. With my paintings it's a similar idea, I layer the paint over and over so that it becomes something unique, although unlike Turner who may have taken a long time changing his work, I am building up the media in shorter space of time. I want these paintings to  make the viewers understand the concept behind it by examining it to form their own ideas of what they view in the painting, and not just from first impressions which may be misleading.

I then continued to the last part of the painting which was the sand. It was quite challenging to create tones which varied as they do in the sand of the photo due to light and water. This is why whenever painted the sand it did blend with the rest of the subtle colours in the painting (as seen in image on the left bellow) The main aspect of the painting causing this was the obvious colour change almost like a barrier between the brown and the blue colours (sand and seas) because they didn't collide or blend in together. To fix this applied more white acrylic paint round the are where the two colours meet, to even out the obvious colour change, I then hanged the painting side ways and applied light blue oil paint in only a few areas and then pressed down turp substance with a paintbrush to make the turp substance thin down the oil paint and cause it to drip down to the sand are, I then similarly some this with a small about of black pen and hairspray. This overall resulted in a blended effect which makes it look like the sea waves are hitting the coast line more naturally and organically due to the free flowing oil paint (result can be seen in the image on the right bellow)

My overall inspiration for this piece of work was this piece of work I have created in my sketchbook, which had originally been inspired by Joseph M.W. Turners work.

Lastly for this sea painting I wanted to add some textured surface detail as in the work above, by making marks on paper with various media such as coloured pencils, hairspray, pen, acrylic paint and paper.

Bellow are two textured pieces of collage that it stuck down to the board with masking tape to see which one would be most suitable.

In the end I decided to use the collage on the right side (photo above) although it did rip the paper a little bit to fit in better with the painting, after ripping the paper I glued it onto the board with PVA glue and then using white acrylic paint and a sponge went over the edges and the are around the paper to allow it to blend in with the rest of the image. Bellow is a photograph of the finished painting.

For my second painting I started off by painting a white base using acrylic paint. After allowing the paint to dry I started applying green and soft brown shades of oil paint. The main idea was to recreate a similar style I have previously discovered during Vytautas Kasiulis research. Initially I wanted to apply smooth defined paint marks which stood out individual yet combined as a whole together. However when I started painting I discovered that the oil paint did not apply the same way as it had on the paper in my sketchbook, despite that the result was even better, as due to the board being hanged up to the wall, as I would press down the paintbrush with the oil paint and the turp substance the whole mixture would start leak down the board creating organic, bold and lively colours. Hence I discovered a new technique which I found excellent for the purpose of this abstract landscape painting.

As seen above I started to gradually build up the dripping effect of the oil paint, which started to associate a lot with the trees in the photograph. However there was a certain point at which the media and colour built up became overwhelming and the whole painting look harsh, which in a way makes the whole painting look brash, with no real focal point. The dark paint around the edges of the board made the whole painting look framed, rather than spacious. Also in this painting I used acrylic paint to highlight some areas, however the undertone in the green paint looked quite artificial compared to the other earth green tones, which made the whole painting stand out in a negative way even more.(Here are the pictures bellow)

In order to correct this issue, I decided go to over the areas which seemed to have too much media, and gently using white acrylic paint and a sponge covered them up. (Image bellow)

It straight away made the painting appear lighter,  lively and more fresh and subtle. I also made sure the overwhelming green tones weren't showing any more, and instead started to apply more earthy green and brown colours. Instead of applying any more paint to the top of the painting (as it would have made the painting look dark and framed again) I gently applied so tea stain to give it a soft warm yellow shade.

 As the majority of the colours blend and compliment each other in this painting, I wanted to add a detail to this painting that would stand out from the rest, hence as you can see in the image on the left bellow, there is a section of grass by the river that is bright orange. Hence I painted a piece of paper with red/orange toned paint, and the stuck it own with masking tape to see if this would look effective, so that I could then later paint it on using oil or acrylic paint. Overall I think the paint looks effective as the redness of it draws the viewers eye to that specific area, making it the staring and focus point of the painting.

Bellow is the photograph of the finished painting, after I have applied red oil paint onto the canvas. Unlike the image on the right above, I chose a less intense and more naturalistic red tone, as I still wanted it fit in with the whole idea of earthy colours.

Overall the process of painting these two paintings has allowed to to stretch my ideas as well as discover and refine new techniques. It has also allowed me to express myself through more abstract landscape art, which takes away the obvious details, replacing them with detailed marks and colours, which can emphasise a lot about a painting, just by looking at it. I think these two experiments have really helped me in terms of considering the main ideas of what I am going to be creating for my final piece, and I now know that painting on a larger scale using board is what I want to continue as well as refining these skills even more, possibly combining them together as well as adding some other techniques from my sketchbook that I have yet had a chance to transfer onto my board paintings. I still look back at my artists for guidance and inspiration, but I believe my experimentations have allowed me to become more independent and expressive in my own personal style.