Experimenting with stencil and watercolour

---Medium: Crafting knife, hard paper, water colour

This is inspired by Michaels Tompsett’s skyline of New York. I decided to make a stencil just like his but leave positive space as Michael Tompsett’s art work is based on the negative space of New York City. -They are both similar concepts.

I used a crafting knife to create a stencil of a building out of a cardboard. After that I experimented with painting in the holes of the stencil with (pink and purple) watercolour. After that, I painted outside the stencil in order to make it look more like a building due to the clear outlines. When doing this, I realised that the stencil was already starting to break because of the amount of water that touched the stencil while painting the holes. To prevent this, I kept layering the hard paper unto each other making it strong and firm.

I thought this went well as the building is visible to see. Also, I think the colours used were too light in comparison to Michaels Tompsett’s skyline. What I did not like from this experiment was the type of paint and colours I used; watercolour makes the paint have a soft texture and so using colours that were already quite soft ruined the effect of the painting and made it to look almost whitewashed. I think using strong, vibrant colours, like the artist, would have made my piece look even better because it makes the abstract within the space look busy- which you would normally see in New York, London and more popular places- and so helps connecting with the piece. I thought this went successfully but would work even better if I changed the watercolour to a darker colour and then experiment with acrylic afterwards.

---Medium: Watercolour, paintbrush, sponge

My aim today is to experiment with different colours and see what works well, in addition I will also change the material used and see the comparison.

Relating to the other experiment I carried out, I decided to use the colour; blue, red and a little bit of orange to make the abstract seem busier than the last experiment I did. Following the same steps as the other experiment, I thought it went

quite well, because even though it had a slightly rough texture, it still looked and felt soft. I did not like how the marks from the paintbrush were visible because it makes the piece looked rushed, scruffy and definitely messy.

To improve this I then decided to use a sponge. I dipped the sponge into the water and then into the black paint first then pressing it onto the stencil creating a nice shape, which looked like a cloud, unto the page. I then added some random colours such as red and blue. This was a better result compared to the first experiment. The reason for this is because of the dark colours I used as it made the texture look rough. Furthermore, I believe using a sponge was really effective because when doing this it reminded me of the clouds and the weather which I thought was a successful result as it relates to my theme ‘Skyline.’ Comparing this to my artist Michael Tompsett, I think this worked really well because of the colours and how I was able to blend them together like he did. The artist uses a more vibrant, lighter colour expressing a happy feeling while I used darker colours connoting to a sad mood. The fact that the sponge technique made the abstract look like clouds, made me see the abstract as bad weather. I was happy with the result because instead of putting the skyline behind an image, like it would normally be, the skyline is seen around the building too which made me even more fascinated with this experiment and willing to explore more of what I can do with skylines and different mediums.