Although I had tried using collage in my sketchbook for starting points, I wanted to try using it onto my canvas instead. I used magazines, poems from my ‘Gigantic Cinema’ weather anthology and paper I had painted using acrylic to rip up. I didn’t have any idea about how I wanted it to look or what the outcome might be so I just started creating! For this piece, I wanted there to be a kind of 3D element and for it to have textural qualities therefore not only did I use glue but I also used staples so that the harder pieces of paper came off from the canvas. Once again, I painted a background onto my canvas to act as a colour base as I strongly feel red is a key focal point to my works development. Overall I don’t like the way this piece turned out, I feel it has a garish quality that undermines the meaning I would like to portray through my work. However, I am more persuaded by the use of texture and the tactile nature it has compared to some of my other pieces so I would like to develop this further. Admittedly I am not the biggest fan of collage but using it within my work has definitely helped me explore all avenues I could go down.
This week I have also created a 30x30cm circular canvas for me to experiment with. I based this piece linking back to a previous blog post I on ‘Literature and Poetry’. Using Lord Byron’s poem ‘Darkness’ explaining the horrendous weather conditions of ‘the year without summer’ LINK 1815-16. Considering how I could further my work, I wanted to link back to the eco-feminism and ecological artists I previously researched around. I thought about different ways I could involve the weather more openly with my art and decided upon exposing them to the elements. In doing so I was hoping to achieve a more natural and unpredictable pattern which I could maybe continue working from. I completed one circle canvas and two watercolour A4 pieces of paper, I decided upon using alternative mediums to see how the weather would affect them differently and placed them in my back garden. I took further inspiration from the watercolours of early Turner works as well as choosing certain poems from my book to act as inspiration.
30x30cm Oil on Canvas 
Close-up 
‘Darkness’ – Lord Byron 1816 (1)
A4 Watercolour 
Charles Baudelaire ‘Spleen IV’ 1857
A4 Watercolour 
Svetlana Alexievich ‘Voices from Chernobyl’ 1997
After leaving my two watercolour pieces out in the rain for 30 minutes they began to tear and rip however the rain did not seem to create the effect I had expected. I attached them to the washing line but they became saturated with water so blew off and landed in a muddy puddle below. Although this wasn’t the outcome I wanted, the texture it produced proved more interesting than I had anticipated. In the pictures below I’ve included some close-up images to show this:
For my circle canvas, I wasn’t sure what to expect however I left it out overnight to ‘weather’ it the most I could. Overall, I was quite pleased with the way it turned out although I did expect more damage to the painting however if I had applied thicker oils this may have been the case. Revealing more of the red layer beneath, I feel, accentuates the anger of the storm and spins another meaning on the poem by Byron – ‘Darkness’ – Darkness not in the literal sense but in a way that fuels passion and emotion. I have included some pictures of after the canvas had been left outside and some close up to see the damage:
I can develop my work further by seeing how different weather conditions could affect my paintings, such as wind, rain, sun etc. I can focus on the eco-feminist Virginia Katz who has produced many pieces physically using nature and weather to produce artwork such as Off-shore Flow, 10 Hours of Observation, Gold and Copper, 10/07/08 (Metallic Ink on Black Paper). (2)
This piece was created ‘By tying strings to tree branches and taping pens at the end of the strings, the wind’s energy force left its markings on paper that was weighted on the ground.’ (3) as stated by Katz. I would love to try something as physical and hands on as this I will keep experimenting to see where this project takes me next!
(2) http://www.virginiakatz.com/wind.html
(3) http://www.virginiakatz.com/wind.html
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