The next stage of Magic and Logic...

The last couple of weeks have been so lovely and sunny - I have taken some time off for a break - and have also been getting on with the next stage of the paintings for the Daedalus Ward for dementia sufferers at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital. So - I took advantage of the sunny weather and visited the orchard again - this time to see the trees full of greenery and luscious red fruit. It was fantastic. It is so fascinating to see how the orchard has changed over the past few months - and this helps me develop the narrative of the paintings from my experiences at the orchard.

 

 

Setting the composition.

I have the basic composition of the first painting set - see previous blog posts. So in order to transfer the composition fairly accurately onto the other canvases, I have scaled the painting using standard copying techniques using a simple grid. (Fig 1)

Figure 1.

This was done quite easily using thread that I simply taped onto the canvas with even measured spacing.(Fig 2)

Figure 2.

I then draw the same grid onto the new canvas and transfer the image by drawing square by square.

This process will be completed across the remaining canvases for this specific series of paintings. It is important to keep the basic composition for all the paintings because I believe that in doing this, memory retention of the image is maximised from viewing one painting to the next; thus enabling the patient to retain some residual imprint of the image in their mind between viewing each canvas. These paintings are also about exercising the brain and mind as well as looking at (hopefully!) pleasing compositions and colourful textures. As a consequence of this, I will be completing all four canvases in this series together and at the same time as the initial composition and colours/textures have been worked out in the first painting. This will again bring an underlying continuity to the images even as they transform to portray the changing seasons. 

The remaining 3 canvases (of 7 for the whole commission) will be relaxed    landscapes/seascapes/weatherscapes painted in an entirely different way.