AS Exam

Sheets holding the Research for my exam piece

This was a trial final piece using the media of watercolour paint and ink.

This is my exam piece which is currently exhibited at the Hodgson Loom art gallery. Size: 47cm x 54cm

Medium: acrylic paint, metallic paint, sand, tissue paper and glue applied with a glue gun

Date: 2013

The essay I wrote about this exam topic and final piece follows

On consideration of the exam title: ‘Covert or Obscured’, I was immediately attracted to the suggested topic of ‘Underwater’. This was no doubt in part due to living on a relatively small island and consequently enjoying a lot of time collecting shells and exploring rock pools on the many beaches. I do also feel that this topic suits the title extremely well as items underwater are obscured from sight and hidden away, as in rock pools.

As such, shells became the focus of my research and led me to the work of artists such as Georgia O’Keefe, and contemporary artists such as Ulrike ‘Ricky’ Martin, and Gabriele Meyer. The American painter Georgia O’Keeffe loved to paint natural objects like flowers, bones and shells. O’Keeffe made her objects large and looked at them closely, painting them with carefully blended colours. Studying O’Keefe’s shell paintings helped me to identify some of the characteristics of seashells, their shapes, patterns, colours and textures. I was inspired by the colour combinations used by Ricky Martin in her painting of ammonites which were very strong and vivid in such contrast to the ammonites I have collected myself when on holiday on the NE coast of England but which somehow generate the magic associated with their find.

I was also interested in the development of an artists work as demonstrated by Meyer who has painted shells but now moved on to using crochet and her love of mathematics to represent the curves, curved surfaces of shells and underwater life in her 3d work. When I also found that Martin uses a wide range of media including that of beeswax I was keen to incorporate texture into my piece.

My research of the work of Vincent van Gogh generated my interest in mark making and obvious brush strokes to add to the textured finish and reaffirmed my decision to use bold and vibrant colours.  As a result I experimented with lots of different textures and media and incorporated the following materials to vary and maximise their effect: tissue paper – to produce folds and creases, inspired by the fact that ammonites were formed by a gradual build of layers of sediment; textured paste, which when dry produces sharp edges similar to that of broken shells and coral; PVA to represent the surface tension of water droplets; sand, a material created by the effect of the sea and providing a grainy finish.

My use of bright bold colours was inspired by the colourful work of Martin and observations from photographic studies of ammonites. After trialling many different colour schemes both by hand and by Adobe Photoshop software I decided to use mainly primary colours for the shell sectors and all blues in the background to allow the sections to stand out with no distractions.

I am happy with the final outcome of my piece as I feel that like my studied artists my piece is eye-catching, jewel like and unique. I particularly like my use of pearlised acrylic paints as a reference to the mother of pearl interior of many shells.

If I were to complete this piece again I would focus on only one or two shells rather than 4 as in my composition. This I feel would create more of a focal point and make it less busy and allow me time to add more detail. I would also like to use a wider range of tone giving shadows and adding further dimension to my piece.

Date 2013