For this painting I return to the old pump and this time focused on a close-up of the name plate. I was drawn to this image for two reasons. The dulled red colours, obviously faded by years of sunlight, and how they contrasted and complimented the brown rust and dark shadows. The composition was rather obvious being a circular in a rectangle. I felt that it worked. For the first time in this series I would introduce Aqua oils to the painting mediums. The underpainting was in acrylics as these adhere well to the acetate support and provide an excellent surface to apply the Aqua oil to.
I took a few photographs of the work in progress, below.
The painting is reproduced below in two formats. The first is photographed against a normal background and the second is against glass which allows some light to pass through.
I enjoy the contrasting ways of displaying or hanging the painting and the varied impact that it has on the painting. When backlit the whole painting appears darker. The light which permeates the thinner areas of painting becomes where the eye is initially drawn to. Whereas the whole painting is lighter when the light from behind is not present. This is the truer reflection of the subject.
I have now completed four paintings that have used the old pump as the subject matter. They are coming together as a series of works that have a common theme and feel to them. My focus has moved from the original focus of derelict or dilapidated buildings. I will now try to incorporate the feel of the old pump paintings into some building paintings and look to move these to another level.
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Additional painting completed 26th August 2020. Further to the above I completed another painting for this series of exploratory works. As previously the painting used a 21 x 29.5 acetate as the support and was painted using Aqua oils. Working from detailed section of a photograph taken during a recent trip to North Yorkshire the painting was built up in three distinct layers. A rough underpainting to get basic colour and paint onto the support, an intermediate stage and a final detail / refinement stage.
Below is the photograph, the second stage and the finished painting.
This is a good addition to this growing project. The techniques used in these paintings is developing in a way that pleases me. The subject matter is hidden, not obvious. To me, this is not the point of the paintings which are more about uncovering the textures, colours and tones and presenting them in a way that is pleasing to look at. At stated before I shall now look to scale up these works.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that Part 5 of the course is titled working with words and the the last two paintings have included words and letters in them.
Mark Taylor 'Studio Practice' 