I started working on my Coast project today, as I need to have 10 images handed in for next week.  I’ve taken several images from my sketchbook that I need to develop.  Out of those 10 images, I then must carefully choose four of these, and submit them for print.  I must decide which type of print I would like for each image, whether it be monoprint, drypoint, etching, collograph, etc.

I tried working on an image I created right at the start of the project, which didn’t turn out well.  So I thought I’d have another bash at it.  It still hasn’t come out as I would have liked, but the result was at least interesting.

I drew in the line work with felt tip pens, and also coloured the fish with felt tip pen.  I then painted the first set of waves in blue gouache, the next set in green, and the final set in greenish yellow.  I then coloured over the top of this with oil pastels, then used pva glue over the outlines of the fish, then applied quink and bleach, et voila!  It looks quite murky just as the sea would, so although it hasn’t turned out as I’d hoped, I quite like the finished piece.

This brings me to my next painting, which I started working on yesterday for the Painting To A Theme project.  I haven’t finished this piece as I needed to work on Coast today.  It’s almost finished, and it is pretty close to the final painting that I will create on canvas.  I have mentioned that I was re-working Hope by George Frederic Watts, and I have shown my ideas here previously.

The original painting by Watts is such a stunning piece of work that I hadn’t truly appreciated until this week.  I was originally attracted by the solemnity and composure of the piece – so graceful yet so very sad.  It shows a blindfolded girl, barefooted and playing a lyre that has only one string left.  When this string goes there will be no more music for this girl.  It is so sad, and yet it is called Hope.  Many have said that it should have been called Despair, as that is what it seems to portray.  It makes more sense if you think of it as hope against hope that the string will not break or that this is the girl’s only hope of music.  Watts himself was passionate about addressing social conditions such as poverty and greed, and his painting was very persuasive to his contemporaries, who recognised the vulnerability of human condition. It was said that a prostitute during his era, saw a photograph of this painting in a shop window, and saved her pennies to buy it.   It was claimed that she looked so deeply at this image that it saved her soul and her placed her on the road to a life of purity.  It was exactly this kind of impact that Watt wanted to have on people, whether rich or poor.  “It made human desolation seem beautiful, noble and morally redeemable.”  In fact, the Egyptian government issued copies of the painting to its troops after its defeat by Israel in 1967!  Such was the power of this painting.  For me, it still has this power.  It is haunting, beautiful, desolate, and yes, it does brings hope.  (Information from the Tate).

I hope that I can do this painting some justice (no pun intended).  I want to retain the solemnity and sadness in my painting, and I feel that the form and colour I have worked into my image does portray that, whilst wishing to retain some of its beauty. As I’ve said, the piece is unfinished, but hopefully you can see where I’m going with it.