Seasonal Painting - Autumn

Part 6 – Parallel Projects

Project: Autumn Seasonal Painting

This seasonal painting represents not only  Autumn but follows the same concept of earlier pictures in the series by imitating the life cycle.  Inevitable pressures that builds on human beings as life accumulates its circumstances and events on the mind and body take their toll.  The burden is still manageable but the portent of things to come is already known and indicated in the picture, to the left of the red light.  The Red and Amber lights are on, the green light is off.  The tree is brittle and limbs can break at any time.  The arms of the figure extend almost as a crucifix.

I have used acrylic paint in an  expressionist way, leaning towards abstraction and symbolism.  The colours indicate the colours of autumn, dull with flashes of colour for which the red/amber lights also act.  The tree is bare the light is fading, the green trees are a memory (to the left) and winter trees are on their way (to the right). 

It appears I was still carrying in my mind the work of Matt Collishaw from my visit to an exhibition in Cambridge last year, and without me realising it I think it influenced my painting a lot, it wasn’t until I looked at his work again, that I saw how much. I am unable to discover the name of the painting, it does not appear on Matt Collishaw’s site but it is a black ground with butterly wings in yellow, orange and blue with brown. I have a copy on my pc but cannot include on blog because of copywright issues.

Check and Log

• Did your painting develop as planned?

I was pleased with the way the images came to me as I was painting, some, like the little spirit figure to the left of the red paint were fortuitous appearances, worthy of being left as it symbolized the future, but most was as I had planned.

• Have your main problems been with the development of the actual painting or have they been with the quality or quantity of the preliminary studies you have been working from?

The preliminary studies were utilized from previous sketches of the apple tree in my garden, but it was only a starting point and I didn’t need sketches as I was developing non-subjective ideas in a semi-abstract way.  The difficulty as is often the case, was knowing when to stop leaving the image clear but not over-worked into something approaching realistic, which was not what I was looking for.

• Now that you have completed the first painting of your extended project how does it influence the way in which you will tackle the other three parts of this project? Are you still happy with your initial idea?

As I have already completed Spring and Summer I have now completed three of the Seasonal paintings, in each one I have tried to develop a specific style, i.e. Spring – Surrealism, Summer – Cubism, Autumn - Exressionism, and I will use an Abstract format for Winter.  I am still happy with the idea of trying to link life with the Seasons, it is not original but slightly different.

I have a clear idea in my mind how I will approach the next part of the project but it may be slightly more difficult than the previous three as it will be using abstract ideas to convey the feeling of winter and the feeling of death. I have some ideas in my head and will have to sketch them out this time.