Painting on Destruction by People/Decay

I wanted to portray decay in a painting as i thought a painting was the best form of media to show decay. I also wanted to incorporate the idea of how people build things just to break them down. To do this i slashed a canvas and ripped it in such a a way that the canvas material was crumpled up but not completeley taken off. I then attached another canvas underneath it where i painted on bricks and also painted the bricks onto the canvas frame from the first canvas. Then i painted the crackling of the paint onto the crumpled canvas in green and red-orange to show a contrast in the colours. I wanted to have the bricks underneath the decayed paint to show how the decay has taken over the bricks.

Wood

One day while walking into college i noticed branches that had fallen on the road and were flat because of cars that had driven over them. I thought this was interesting as it sort of represented the way that people take nature for granted and rarely take it into account. I collected quite a bit of it and dried it out for a couple of days. I did struggle for a while with ideas of what to do with all the wood. I had an idea of sticking all of it together and then varnishing the wood to create an image and after I had stuck all the wood together I realised that it wasnt very visually appealing to me. So i started working out different ideas and the one that i settled on was a painting on canvas where the wood represents a rotting city. I used black, ultramarine and white but then decided that it was too dark and didn't compliment the wood so i painted over it in brown, yellow,white and ultramarine. I then stuck the wood on in such a way that it looked like the viewer was looking down a street and i made the wood smaller as it went in towards the centre of the painting to add perspective.

Peeling Card

I was inspired by the way paint peels off of objects over time due to weathering and the elements. From this I decided to get card and peel off the overlayer to reveal the whiteness of card underneath. On one piece of card i peeled off bits in such a way that it looked like cracks in wood. The overlayer i painted blue and then i chose a complimentary colour to paint the underneath.

On the other piece of card i designed a small city and peeled off architectural details like windows and bricks and underneath the city shows the way that it is rotting the earth underneath. I showed the rot in how the way paint cracks on wood.

Prints

I decided to do some printmaking so i chose a design that i took from a photograph of a gate at Kate O'Brien's House. I did many prints on different materials and in different colours. I decided to isolate the centre of the design so that it was a circular design and i did approx 150 prints as I intended on doing a hanging fixture or a chandelier. The base colours were red merging into yellow and the second print on top of the base was a jade green. I then cunt out the white parts. I then played around in the construction and drew out designs in my sketchbook to decide what design was most appealing and viable. I then decided on a fan design and it was quite strong and i liked the look of it.

Photographic Research

I became quite interested in ivy and i photographed it in late autumn (november) so it was full of rich reds, oranges and yellow colours. Ivy interested me because it is a flora that grows out any little nook or cranny on buildings that it can and it just spreads.