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| (reference photo) |
The idea for this painting came to me late March, when I was brimming
with inspiration after having spent the day with fellow creatives in a visual
exploration at Fort Lytton, through the Urban Art Binge workshop, supported by
Jugglers Art Space.
I came across a yard of red cranes for hire, looming over me
against a blue sky, at an industrial site in Wynnum. The sight was impressive,
and as I noticed an airplane ascending in the background, an analogy came to me
loud and clear; we are striving for greater heights; in business, finance, in
the workplace, our building developments, in our advancements in technology,
etc., but these heights are most commonly placed within our own preoccupations;
those which are often a distraction from any greater picture.
Our reach for greater heights is often driven by common interests;
power and money. This painting attempts to give a visual analogy for a distraction
in our methods. And in retrospect, this analogy can be interpreted in many
different ways, or applied to various circumstances and is therefore open for independent
analysis. Death to the Author I say!
The method
Composition
The intention of my message is to draw focus towards ‘something
greater’ than our common most preoccupations, so I gave two-thirds of the
surface to the blue sky, over the red cranes. I chose to use the clouds from an
image I took at Mount Coot-tha, during another Urban Art Binge venture. Being
at a high vantage point allowed me to capture the effect of ‘looming clouds’.
This element will be used to create an intensity in my image.
Transferring the preliminary drawing to the painting surface
proved difficult at first, as initially I had not adhered to specific
measurements and ratios. I often realise at this point in my process, that I should
not underestimate the importance of mathematics when designing an image. In my
opinion it is one of the most valuable skills that I have as an artist, albeit it
being at a very basic level. And giving thought to this still does not allow me
to reiterate every instance where this skill is used in my
techniques. Yet as I’m sure that other artists; painters and especially sculptors
know what I mean when I say that one is continually referring one point to
another when creating a work that requires a sense of proportion.
Colour to create depth
The next step in my method is to consider the use of colours
in the image to create a sense of depth (well it's actually one of my first steps, but this is when it becomes explicit). Depth is another important factor in
this image, as it gives a sense of expansion, so I keep the cool colours to the
background, and the warmer colours to the fore. And, when considering the
contrast between the two complementary colours red and blue, the red is bound
to stand out very nicely.
Application
I choose to use Acrylic for my underpainting as it is cheaper
and dries quickly, so that I can keep painting over it to achieve the tones I’m
aiming for. I usually only use one colour, simply to create a tonal underpainting.
However in this case I have some paint left over from the Jungle Safari
backdrop (which I will post images of soon), so I’m using these colours without
great control, to create a depth in colour. As I’m sure most will agree that
the more you observe something, the more information you discover, so the more
I observe clouds the more variations of hue I’m aware of; depending on the time
of day of course.
And this is where I’m at at the moment (it's not the best photo I know, and I'm working on this!). I’m re-considering
the placement of the cranes, and planning to re-organise those in the middle as
they’re too close to each other.
Here’s to another rainy day inside writing
about what I should be doing!
