Studio Practice: Hygeia Frieze Colour Studies Celf o Gwmpas Walkway Project November 2020

During November 2020 following the series of drawings, gouache studies were made. The aim of making the studies was to familiarise myself with the colour palate, make adjustments to composition and develop the designs so that colour would be the structure of the image. By this I mean that the image is the interaction of colour, Form and pictorial architecture are described through one hue placed against another.

Panel 3 featuring Women cyclists reference Eileen Sheridan featured in National Cycle Museum

The colour palette is planned to be saturated colour to maximise vibrancy and dynamic capitalising on the full quality of manufacturers colour product and to therefore give maximum hue. The gouache range fairly matched the planned colours that would be applied. Using block form, flat and the hard edges describing the linear aspect but also delimiting each colour against the other and therefore maximising intensity, structure is defined. In practical terms this method would also facilitate second and third coates of paint, essential to maintain a good surface for outdoor location and strengthen the overall pictorial effect of colour. Here, by making studies, the issue was to think about each recess in the walkway, the design overall, interconnectivity between the the frieze elements and how the viewer might look at the work whilst passing in either direction along the walkway. As colour enters and leaves each panel, how will it continue onto the next, not perhaps through the actual edge colour but more the main component elements continuing, in part, throughout the frieze.

As I was making the studies and moving on from the drawing that mainly established motif, colour interaction further developed the pictorial architecture by fragmenting some forms and the overlapping (not overlaying) elements and re forming of shapes and features evolved a greater fluidity of form. Without losing touch with the established design (as described in the drawings blog post) colour and the way it works in this kind of scenario was developed to forge new meanings, perhaps in the way the cycle breaks into the neighbouring forms or where the main interlocking form that traverses all panels becomes subsumed into bars and blocks of different and contrasting colour.