Starting Visual Research

I started my visual research by addressing the first trend that I chose: Floral studies. I started this by gathering images and drawings of flowers from a variety of places, the garden, parks, and garden centres. I found that the most interesting photos were those taken in the garden centres due to the more colourful range of flowers. They were full of tone, texture and colour, such as these two shown below. They offer lots of qualities that I can draw and work from. 

After collecting a selection of images, and finding plants to draw from, I began to address some of the other trends that Digetex had given us: Watercolour and Fine Line. I therefore drew and painted them in a variety of ways: creating studies of line and texture, drawing linear, accurate drawings, and loose watercolour paintings. This mixture of styles gives me a lot to work with and I enjoyed seeing the different qualities I could achieve with the media. I was also very conscious that Debbie mentioned that she wanted to see lots of drawing and layering of media, so I wanted to make that aspect very strong in my work.

Image A: Study of Pansies

Image B: Abstract Watercolour Floral Painting

Image C: Fine Liner Flower Drawing

I feel that Image B is very successful. I like the way the paint bleeds in areas, and the colours and style isn't accurate, but is stylised. This is not my usual way of working at all. I usually draw accurately and neatly, so producing such an interesting loose drawing was a shock and surprise to me. Image A represents my style and abilities more, it isn't as loose as the other painting. Unfortunately this weeks setback was that I can't seem to loosen up enough to create more paintings like Image A. I feel as though it was a one off lucky painting and no matter what flower I paint, or how quickly or loosely I try to do it, I can't achieve the same kind of painting. I will keep persisting with trying this style as I would like to achieve a looser and more abstract quality in my work. If I can achieve this effect, I think it will contrast well with the line qualities achieved by Image C.

As well as experimenting with florals, I also experimented with just the watercolour trend to see what kind of effects I could achieve. I painted wet on wet, I bled colour into wet shapes, played with resists and colour effects to try and meet the brief as best as I could. Some of my favourite effects included rice (Image D) and PVA, as well as making wet colour circles and letting the colours bleed into each other (Image E). I definitely want to continue experimenting with these ideas to see if any areas could be blown up and used as a design.

Image D: Watercolour and Rice Study

Image E: Watercolour Study

The next stage for my work will be to continue creating drawings and paintings to work from, but to start experimenting with arrangement and consider ideas about how my work could be translated into designs. I have started to experiment with a colour palette that was on one of the trend boards  provided by Digetex. I can already see that I am slowly changing and adding colours as my work develops so I will post this at a later date when I am certain of what my Palette is.