This watercolour is an experiment with tonal colour and pushing it beyond where it looks pleasing. I start the work by drawing pencil lines, a dense layer of horizontal lines and some random lines. They are a guide to begin arranging the colours and I like the way they assert the flat surface, making it like a sensing plane. As they build up the layers of colour create their own depths and forms – I make them by constantly working over the paper linking marks trying to make sure that everything goes somewhere or is answered.
In the past I have spent a lot of time drawing cities and I can almost see them in these abstract studies. To add texture I work with watercolour, acrylic ink and some acrylic paint; it is all water based, but the acrylic has a raised profile and repels watercolour. The horizontal lines in my city paintings were like a plane in space picking up on change in the environment. In this colour study they are reminiscent of a stave in written music, the placing of the colours being the composition.
Colour Study
40 x 30cm, watercolour, pastel, acrylic ink on paper with collage
£300
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