I wanted to do some final experiments before I ‘close’ my making for this module. My making doesn’t stop – but it has to make room for the writing I have to complete – so I have to put a ‘marker’ in to define what I am reflecting on and submitting for this module.

I am happy with the body of work I have made to submit, but I wanted to experiment with the quality of line and the rigidity of the base material to see if I could confirm or provide alternative options.

I decided to test deliberately un-precise stripes on a formal base (of a stretched canvas) and the SAME colours and sizes on un-primed canvas fabric with precise and un-precise stripes.

I am definitely NOT convinced by the free hand (and deliberately broken) edges of these stripes. I don’t feel the work at all and just look messy – more haphazard than deliberate. I mind the broken lines less on the smaller canvas fabric (probably as they are a ‘tighter’ version) but overall prefer the precise stripes on the canvas fabric out of the three. This was interesting in that I can make more ‘environmental’ work – that can flap about as people pass it and doesn’t stick firmly to the wall (as Polly Binns’ work) – and of interesting sizes with frayed edges etc.

Interestingly – to notate the colours to go in the stripes (as I have done on every piece in order to keep the order and avoid confusion) I had to use pen on the fabric. This shows through the acrylic just as it shows through the emulsion. This is an interesting concept – as Angela was suggesting that my diary notations were, at times, ‘poetic’ – so perhaps including these words to deliberately show through might be something to investigate.

I decided to try to blend one stripe into another ONLY  – as a focus of interest – rather like the varnish. I really liked this as a feature – and is something else I would consider for the future. I think this would work best with colours with a similar hue i.e. blue to paler blue – as the mixing of a blue and red (with a similar tonal quality) would create another colour in the mixed area of purple – which doesn’t exist in the original code.

What excited me most though, was zooming in with the camera on a few stripes together. Here, the roughness and overlaying of the colours works brilliantly – the simplicity as well as the boldness of the colours is striking and retains the coding I use. I could envisage large canvases of these colours – perhaps with filler used to create a surface texture (like a giant canvas weave) could create the depth for a colour to be overlaid.

These would have to suggest a mood with nothing more than a few simple colours and the way they interact.

At the end of the stripes I had a fair bit of paint left over – so I found some adverts from The Stylist magazine to obliterate the beauty of the advert with the colour. So you would focus on the interaction of the remaining bits of the advert with the paint. My favourite is the lime background with accents of red overpainted in duck egg blue. The interaction of these colours is joyful to me.