Module 1. "Stars and Crosses:" Chapter 1

The first task on Module 1, was to decided on which subject to research, stars or crosses. When looking at the definitions of each shape,  my initial thoughts were to explore crosses further. However, with my love of gardening and the winter looming, I decided to base this module on star shaped images, so that I could include flowers and snowflakes.

My collection of images were sourced from the internet, magazines, books, cards and personal photographs.

The line drawing of various star shapes were drawn, this proved to be more of a challenge than I had expected. Free hand sketches or mathematically correct shapes? I am the sort of person who likes things to be precise and this often prevents me from starting a project. I tried to remember my geometry skills from school to draw images accurately at first, but then plucked up the courage to just draw some images free hand, as the exercise was taking a long time.

Rubbings were made from printing stamps, cards and embossed card. They were made with basic wax crayons and a wash of brusho ink in a contrasting colour to show the patterns more clearly. This proved to be alot more difficult than I imagined and remembered from my childhood days. Surfaces were not always defined enough to produce a pattern that could be easily seen.

The Colour Wheel.

I had painted a colour wheel before, but not with gouache paints. I didn't find them that easy to work with at first and wondered if it would be better to dilute them slightly with water. When carrying out this task before, I just followed the formula to create the given colours. This time I was thinking more carefully about the different primary colours and the effects they produce, easpecially with the tints and shades. Up until a couple of years ago, I had just thought about mixing red and yellow to make orange etc. However, once I started to dye my own fabric, I realised that it was much more complicated, with warm and cold colours producing very different effects. This is an area that I would like to develop further, but I think that I will use water colours, rather than gouache paints. This work would then become an invaluable reference resource.

Melanie Testa recommended the watercolours used below to explore and gain experience when mixing these paints together. Although, this simple task gave me a glance into the possibilities of colour mixing, I can see that this is a whole area in its self. I would love to explore this more with both watercolours and acrylic paints, as I feel these are the mediums I prefer to work with. I would like to look at  colour mixing of both warm and cool colours against given pictures to gain a greater understanding of how colours are produced. I would also like to look at darkening colours, other than by adding black. Melanie, suggests usng a colours complement, as it both darkens and enlivens the colour.