Advanced Painting: Symbolic Colour ( and some mussels)

 This week in 'Advanced Painting' , following on from looking at colour strategies, we had an introduction to symbolic colour, where it isn't naturalistic.

Among the examples looked at were: Peter Diog ( above) , the colours giving an unsettling feeling; and Chagall's use of colour , pattern , composition  with focal point and leading round the picture.

 We spent some time discussing this painting by Eileen Cooper: the use of the 3 primaries, outlining in blue the same tone as the red  with highlights in yellow and  the close cropping of the composition. Also this Mattise picture: use of complimentaries,  strong lights and darks.
There was then a demo  with mixing colours  in 3 tones and then using them randomly ( with some interesting results 

I didn't do that exercise however (though I might have a go at home) as after various sketches   and studies  of boats (  above is the  study on  a piece of old quilt which I did last week ) , I've finally settled on working with  mussels.

Inspired by Paul Nash , I took lots  of photos in close-up of some shells and played around collaging them onto photos of  sand ripples,  developing ideas about how I might integrate  the patterns of lines.

 Using  one of the sections of gessoed old quilt I did earlier in the week, I sketched out a mussel - the quilt patterns are a bit overwhelming at the moment, it needs more work . So in the meantime , I did a quick study on an A3 canvas. This also requires more work as  it's a bit too realistic  for my taste.  Bearing the 'symbolic colour' flavour of the session, I did some playing around in Photoshop ( version at the top of this post)  which shows some potential.  

And after a weekend at the inspiring   West Country Quilt and Textile show in Bristol,  with such a positive response to my indigo shibori ' Voice of the Waters' ( which I wasn't quite sure about) , I've been dreaming about how I might use   indigo ripples to construct mussels. I haven't quite worked out yet how I'd piece them.