Pink Rambling Roses

My shoulder rehab is continuing with it's up's and downs. I bounced back from my recent bout of problems to get back into the studio again within the week. I have been doing a lot of experimenting on scrap sheets of watercolour paper, which basically means me dripping and oozing paints, and inks and scraping at the pigments with scalpels, and twigs to try and get texture. I have also been playing with cling film and salt (the usual watercolourist's toys). So far I have learnt a lot, even if the result is a muddy puddle lol.

Today I decided to make a quick sketch of a couple of rambling rose blossoms weaving their way round a hedgerow (similar to before), then set about throwing paint around. I wasn't intending to make a painting and the focus was not on composition, but more about gestural mark making and texture. I went overboard in areas and of course things got muddy, but I continued to add splatters, and used twigs to drag the ink out, which helped a little. I am in love with granulation as a contrasting effect, but am yet to work out how to get consistently good results

Anyway, I think I am going to probably use more light sketching to provide me with a framework before experimenting next time. The blank paper has been rather intimidating and I have noticed I seem to need a focal point to bring out better results. Here's the result and some cropped views to show the mark making up close. I hope my shoulder doesn't act up tomorrow after a long day in the studio....oh well it's all part of the rehab process :) and I am starting to get more and more excited about the art shop (yay)

The whole piece



Twigs and splatters ...




Check out that granulation, baby (lol) !! (and negative space painting)



Watercolour pencil, intense crayon sticks ...



Thanks for stopping by




Samantha Braund

A Hot Creative Streak...

I am in a rich creative vein at the moment, and have painted these experimental pictures, as well as a couple of abstract textured pieces, and have even made several glass pieces in workshop. I will post images of those very soon - I am very excited about how they've turned out, and can't wait to try and combine them with my copper forming work....

I am trying to take advantage of this good streak, as I know it will wane - but my head is spinning, with all the possible directions I can go in. There a few things I should be following up on, I just need to calm down and see what happens...






Samantha Braund

An Artistic Train Of Thought

I thought I'd document how I've gone about producing work following the method of Primary research gathering, then developments from the primary research, to media experiemntations and ultimately to final pieces of work. It's more for myself tbh, to serve as a kind of diary entry. I do have a formal reflective journal that I fill in for the course too, but I thought it'd be fun to document it here too

Primary research - following a trip to the Tate in London, I came across Sir John Everett Millais's Pre Raphaelite masterpiece Ophelia. It is world famous, and had been a favourite of mine, seen in the form of posters on uni students walls....but this was the first time I got to see it in person. It is breathtaking....

There were many reasons I was drawn to it, the theme of Ophelia's descent into madness as described in Shakespeare's Hamlet for one, then the painting itself is a real draw - the dreamy feel, the luminescence and realism of the drowning figure, and the detailed fauna framing the scene. The other thing that struck me was the effect of the ornate dress part submerged in water - the textures were so rich and evocative, and the tinges of gold, silver and pearly blues were of particular interest to me

Media Experimentations and Developments - I became just a little absorbed with the idea of trying to emulate the effect of the layers of clothing submerged under water. I did washes of acrylic paint, combining it with thicker impasto layers, but this didn't have the effect I was after



In the end after trial and error I started experimenting with layers of different types of papers and melting wax to create the translucence I was after. I combined this with fibres of cloth, and random splodges of metallic pigment - finally I ended up with many sample of waxed layered papers, which were thick, strong and reasonably pliant



The first development I wanted to do was to use these collaged waxed papers to create dresses for dancing figures as seen below





I really loved the effect, and had fun experimenting with acrylic paint effects and indian ink to create the backgrounds too. As mentioned while making these waxed papers, I found them to be surprisingly strong, and pliant, so I thought I would test this out, by using wire to "sew" them onto wire frames. I started stitching a circle of waxed paper to a frame, and once this was complete I found I was able to twist and form the wire frame - the waxed paper stayed intact and even moved with the wire....this lead to the idea of making multiples of these stitiched waxed paper frames, and configuring them together into a 3D abstract form, as seen below...






(a close up of the papers and wire weaving)

I have no real idea, at this stage, what I am going to do with these 3D "things", but it has been an interesting journey so far, from Ophelia to these mini discoveries... I have enjoyed each stage including the failed experimentations, and am trying to keep an open mind with regard to the direction I'll be going down next



Samantha Braund