What have you achieved?
Did you enjoy working with colour and were you able to mix and match colours accurately?
The colour-matching exercises were really enjoyable, although probably in part because I do a lot of this in my design work so it was in my "comfort zone". That said, there were some notable differences in working with paints as opposed to dyes, in particular, there is no white dye so this has to be managed by using dilutions rather than tinting with white paint. Making repeatable quantities and keeping accurate records is much easier with dyes as I can start with known stock solutions and use syringes to measure dyes used accurately.
Were you able to use colour expressively?
I found it quite difficult to steer away from obvious ways to interepret emotions and concepts (eg. using bright colours for happy, positive themes and murky colours for negative, sad themes). Expressing more abstract ideas such as passive and active was an interesting challenge and I made more use of marks with these terms than colour.
Did the exercise help you to really see colour instead of accepting what you thought you saw?
In the colour-mixing exercises I was surprised by the colours I needed to mix to achieve a good match. There were many undertones and subtle nuances of colour in some of the samples I was replicating. For example, in the fabric sample what appeared to be "green" had a much stronger blue content than at first seemed to be the case. I used 10 different base colours (not all in every sample!) to achieve the four different shades in the fabric.
Did you prefer working with watercolours or gouache paints? What was the difference?
I found that that Gouache paints are more controllable and the colours are more opaque, making them more intense and rich. They are my preferred choice for precision work and when I need really lush colours. Watercolours on the other hand are somehow liberating as they have a bit of a life of their own! This is quite good for me as I am a bit tense when it comes to painting so using a medium that requires a less structured approach forces me to relax more which I find enjoyable.
How successful were the colour exercises in Stage 5? Were they more or less interesting than the painting exercises?
I did not enjoy working exclusively with primary colours. I find them quite jarring. I tried to use red-orange with the yellow-orange to give a more harmonious feel whilst staying broadly within the primary colour brief. To cheer myself up I did experiment with some interesting stitches and stitch combinations, varying the proximity and size of stitches to see how the black background interacted with the stitches.
If you enjoyed them more, were there any factors that made them more exciting?
I think that with more freedom of choice as to colour this would have been a more enjoyable exercise. Working with stitch gives additional opportunities to create light and shade through textural stitches. The variety of threads available - different thicknesses, reflective or dull, smooth or slubby gives lots of additional scope for creating pieces with 3-dimensional qualities. Working in stitch is more tactile and satisfying.
Are you pleased with what you achieved? Is there anything you would like to change or develop?
Of the exercises in this project I was pleased with the colour-matching. I also enjoyed the final stage, using French knots to create a representation of one of my watercolours (the poppy head). Although I think if I re-did this piece I would try to get an even wider range of thread colours (possibly finer ones too) so that I can create more subtle shading effects.
