Free choice projects 21 April

This is the penultimate week for our class. Everyone is doing their free choice work for the last two weeks. One or two are away as it is half term. Here is a selection from the class starting with Anne's large landscape very nearly finished; Janice's still life study, early stage; Jean's flower study, early stage; June's flower study, early stage; Michael's large landscape (version 2) midway stage; and, Mary's still life study, mid way stage. As you can see, the class is producing strong and interesting work at every stage:

From 2D to 3D

Last week we did exercises around seeing a real life object (a piece of fruit) as tone and colour - turning it into a 2D representation. This week we completed the exercise using our 2D understanding to create a 3D illusion of a piece of fruit. The results are bold, colourful and definitely 3D! Included below is), Ann's latest painting of the Angel of the North and two of Michael's earlier still-life pencil studies:

Observing colour and modelling

This week we went back to a basic technique, tone strips and cones, and added a twist. We worked in colour using fruit as the reference. This is to help us analyse colour and form without the distraction of representation (making it look like the fruit). See for your self but there is no denying which strip or tube is a lime with its dark metallic earthy greens compared to say the light lemon greens of a pear, or a lemon, or an orange. For added challenge we placed each piece of fruit on a strong colour cloth/paper. Homework is to use these studies to produce the representational picture of the fruit. Below are the pastel studies by Rose, Frank, Mary, Moira, Anne, Val, Janice and Michael.

31 March still life project and other pictures

We are moving to a still life project. Some have started their studies whilst the others finish off their landscape projects. Here is Val's Cuban stray dog painting and the studies for the still life by Frank, Mary, Rose (2). NB: photos of the still life sets are in the resources page on the right for Frank, Mary and Rose.

31 March - progress on our large landscape projects

We continued with the large landscape project for a third week as everyone felt there was more to do reach a satisfactory point of development in their paintings. Whilst for two this was their first chance to get going. The range of colours, textures and designs is wonderful. There is an amazing depth of colour and tone to the works which can only be achieved through patience and working over a long period to build up the picture layer by layer. The results so far are exciting vindication of the perseverance shown by each painter here.  Here are those paintings at 31 March:

Moira's stunning view of Skiddaw.

Ann's lovely Angel of the North

Jean's painting is developing great depth.

Michael's second version is looser and open, very nice.

June's picture is developing interest by
contrasting the land with the
water surface textures.

Anne's landscape has gorgeous, sensitive colour,
giving a real sense of southern european air.

Val's Seurat study is developing well,
with clear design starting to show amidst
all the textures and colours.

Val's new landscape is a vibrant picture with loads
of interesting details.

Mary's Hopper is developing well, the softening of the sky
in the left is good as the reduction in the hard lines
around the shapes, helping to pull the picture together. 

18 March - landscapes, details and peer critiques

This week we reviewed each others progress in the large landscape project started last week. Everyone seemed to find out something new about themselves working on such a large scale. Here are the full paintings with its detail below, as chosen by peers during the peer critiques, in the following order: Michael, Janice, June, Jean,  Rose, Ann (train in a landscape, full picture only), and Frank.  Watch out in a later posting to this blog for a video of the class doing their critiques and details to show how we do this task.