Part Two: Project Three – Stage Six.

Combining textures and colour effects:

Seurat:

The module notes tell me that ‘ a technique called pointillism is a system of colour printing where dots or colours seem to merge to make new colours’. I have found when researching Georges Seurat that his large-scale work ‘A sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte’ painted in this technique was one of the icons of 19th century painting. The optical effects of this technique are more evident to me in the detail of Seurat’s ‘Circus Sideshow’ .When small distinct dots are placed together as contrasting dots of paint they look like a third colour – to me they are applied in patterns to form an image:

I have to wonder if when placing primary hues side by side if the colours are more intense and pleasing to the eye and mind than when mixed by paint – being mindful of the fact that material and optical pigments do not mix together in the same way.

As a chorister I warm to  Seurat’s belief that a painter could use colour to create harmony and emotion in art in the same way that a musician uses counterpoint and variation to create harmony in music.

 On the west coast of New Zealand we have the most natural representation of Piontillism in the skin textures of the Green Gecko (Naultinus tuberculatus)

 

 

Cezanne:

Being a Post-Impressionist Cezanne leaned more towards the Cubist tradition  demonstrating with brush strokes the images he identifies with the all-seeing eye painting the world as he saw it.

My tentative steps into watercolour images start with a clean sheet of white paper on which I pencil in a few outlines to guide me when applying various colours one at a time a bit like colouring in the pictures of a crayon ing in  book.

Apparently Cezanne layered his colours waiting until the paint dried and then added the next layer. He switched between pencil and paint and paint brush and pencil.I tend to use water to dilute the colours to arrive at the colour I want to produce. For me this is a learning process so each new effort will be another way of experimenting in keeping with the masters. Mixing paints to arrive at the required colour is going to be a story in itself – who knows I may even be the next Pic………………………….

Reinforcing what I have learned and mentioned earlier I could spend a life time exploring the possibilities of colour harmonies and I am left with the urge to return – what is the saying – ‘stop whilst you are enjoying what you are doing and come back to it again at some later stage’. The colour works I found demanding and have avoided getting into the physics of colours, concentrating on the practical aspects required of Block Two. Have become very intent on understanding the mixing of colours and the relationship between the various hues on the colour wheel.

I want to echo “Menze” when she says ‘take time to play with the colour harmonies with paints or dyes and especially with the materials of your favourite medium……………………keep going back to the drawing board and tweak the colours until they are just right’.