CHAPTER 9 : Project 2

Project 2 : Atmosphere

STAGE 1 : A Starting Point

When I read the title of this project I knew what sort of atmosphere I would like to capture. It was a year ago on my holidays to Poland. My husband and I decided to take a different path on the way to Morskie Oko in the Polish  mountains.  The weather was gloomy and very wet but the forest was amazing and beautiful. There was a big contrast between wet light air and wet very dark woods.

STAGE 2 : Preliminary Drawings

 I did not make any drawings for this task, as I did not want think too much about details.  Any preliminary drawing could spoil the final effect.

When I saw painting called ‘Nocturne in Black and Cold, the Falling Rocket’ by Whistler James from 1875-I felt that I would like to keep as much tension in my work as he did.  This is an Impressionist painting not the expressionist but it has so much power and keeps the atmosphere of that event very well.

STAGE 3 :  Painting

This is a painting built from four sheets of canvas-textured paper, 51 x 41 cm each.  This gave me a big space 100 x 80 cm.

I like to work with a rug or a cloth as this gives me more freedom for my movements.

What a joy to be able express myself in such an easy way!

Light acrylic paint covers most of my white space, darker on the bottom part and lighter ton on the top. The small stones appear on the light green colour and the big ones on the darker.

I started to describe the space and distance with different size of stones.  I have done the same with the grass.

All looks well so far.  I like the simple colours, which I used to create this painting.

My biggest worry is how far can I go and not spoil the work?  I put dark woods to make the colour of air more dramatic.  Clear blue water looks fine to me, do not want touch it any more.  The stones are starting to appear and make more structure rather than flat space.

I decided to paint the forest in blue colour to make it visible however very light and airy.

This is my final painting .I do not want to touch it at all.  I put more white paint with a toothbrush, the reason for that was to create water in the air.  

STAGE 4 : What have you Achieved?

I think I have achieved what I wanted.

I created an airy atmosphere full of cold colours.  I used only simple colours like black, blue, green, cold brown and white.  The composition of this work is interesting enough to look few times and try find something new every time.  The organisation is complex; many individual units like trees and stones crowd the painting.  Some of the lines are clear and some are obscure.

I used light to create mood.

I was more free and creative on this task.  When I was painting, I had few images of Helen’s Frankenthaler in my head.