FIN 121 Unit 3

FINAL PROJECT – min size 24 by 36. Not on paper. Otherwise, my choice.

PLANNING DOCUMENT was due 27 March. I was out of town for medical stuff several days leading up to deadline so submitted a very early version, many revisions to follow, but here it is:

NEXT STEP Found a 36×36″ canvas to suit my goal to paint square. Taped a 1 3/8″ border with painters tape, and gessoed the canvas. Such a large expanse, I’m a bit intimidated. While it dried, I worked on colour trial mixes and dashed off quick experiments on paper.

Second colour trials better: Compared dark sections of water with UM Blue/Black mixes compared with UM Blue/Orange mixes (orange made with approx 50/50 Yellow Oxide and Naphthol Red) and preferred the latter. Compared wood for the dock surface with burnt sienna mixes versus grey /blue mixes and preferred the latter. Made a trial of tinting down some of the blue/greys for light sections of the water, and added some matte and some shiny medium for quick testing — didn’t look ridiculously out of place, but I think will use sparingly and late in the process…

EVOLVING IDEAS: “View to the south”. As I worked with the colours, my ideas about the piece started to shift, dragged along by the politics and world events of the day. I began to see the painting’s foreground as my calm, rather Zen vantage point but the scene ahead of me undergoing disruption, chaotic forces. The view of orange across water took me to JMW Turner’s 1834 painting of the burning of the British House of Parliament and House of Lords. I imagined a mash-up of my contemplative Zen landscape with images from today’s chaos. Turner’s painting is explicit about what is burning — I considered working in explicit images, the shape of the US Capitol building, a Statue of Liberty reference, maybe it is her torch lighting the fire? Maybe it is a broader version of “on fire” I want — not just America seen from the perspective of Canada? Maybe my small strip of distant land can’t accommodate the evils I imagine it personifying? If I am emulating Turner to some degree, I am going to have to shift away from his 50/50 split sky and water, to have my viewer see the fire largely as reflection on water and dock, not much room for detail… Decided to block in the basics of the dock / water / horizon / sky, then test out the fiery chaos as I go.