Part 2, Project 3 Exercise 4 – Still life with colour to evoke mood (update)

My Yupo stock is really low, so I had a go at making my own, using gloss gel medium painted with a credit card onto mixed media paper. The reason for this is I got a whole load of really high strength inks (they are pure pigments usually used for resin work, so they are very strong). I wanted to use them to try another version of the Still life under Covid-19 arrangement that I’d done previously, this time using weird colour combinations (and trying not to think about that too much). I think I was going for some kind of a cross-over between Gauguin/Matisse and Cezanne in the colours or look of it – I wasn’t sure how it would turn out at all. I again used the trace-off technique to get the image down on the prepared paper, which was shiney and non-absorbent (a bit like photo paper actually).

• 

• 

I tried blending with water and isopropyl alcohol and sometimes it worked but not always. The ink is actually quite thick, and even though the tiny bottles have a needle applicator tip, the fluid wasn’t running into the water and moving about as much as I think they would have done on proper Yupo. This is the end result, after a lot of faffing about.

Even though this is a messy attempt, I quite liked the colours. I decided to have another go but using something I could control a bit better – so out with my trusty water-soluble oil pastels.

• 

• 

• 

It ended up looking like this:

I don’t think this kind of meets the brief of being a ‘still life with colour used to evoke mood‘ but maybe when I look back at this once lockdown is over, I might see it differently. The image could still be worked differently – perhaps even on fabric, using wax resist (where the dark lines are) to create a batik-type effect. I might look into that if I have time.