The snapdragon painting
Finding visual balance: a progress update
Newsletter Issue #69
Continuing on from last time, today I share with you the progress I’ve made on the snapdragon painting. You can refresh your memory on that here.
The work in progress I showed you was actually really annoying me. The balance just felt off.
It started with a general discontentment with the vase, but the more I looked at it, the more the flowers felt really clunky and overdone. Ultimately I decided that any changes made to the vase would likely dictate any changes made to the flowers, so with the vase I started.
The first step was to create a reference drawing for the vase. I knew in my mind’s eye that I wanted the neck to be quite thin, but a visual mind often needs a visual reference so I rounded up 3 small vases and sketched them out.
Of the three references, the first one wasn’t doing it for me, but I was enjoying elements of the second and third. Particularly the rounded edges on vase 2 and the length and thinness of the neck on vase 3.
The next step was to combine vases 2 & 3 into a hybrid, imaginary vase 4. This felt much better.
The vase is quite an important part of the composition because it visualises the human element of the painting’s story. It is human made, and it is used to contain a part of nature indoors. By bringing nature inside we’re also bringing our associations of it with us. In the case of the snapdragon, called by different animal-inspired names, placing it in a vase allows us to reminisce on the playfulness these names invoke on the imagination.
Moving on from sketching a reference, it’s time to think about how this area will be repainted. I know already that I want the vase to reflect some of the sky panel in the glazing, as that will further solidify the narrative of bringing nature and imagination inside from out.
Thinking about what colour the vase is going to be, I’m leaning toward lighter colours, reminiscent of proper porcelain, the creation of which is an age old craft and ties in nicely with this human connection in the painting's narrative.
Do I want to include any ornamentation on the vase? I’m not yet sure. In theory yes, but in practice I suspect that it might be too much. On discussing this with my husband (chief proof-reader and sounding board), he pointed out that ornamentation is often nature inspired, the inclusion of which would arguably strengthen these connections even further. I hadn't thought of it like that, so I definitely think I'll play around with it before deciding either way!
As I started to repaint the vase, I ended up reworking the flowers (unsurprising). I decided that having too many stems was part of the problem and so changed that to a single stem, and as I was doing that concluded that the neck of the vase actually needed to be even thinner and taller to accommodate this one stem.
This is where the painting is at currently. Visually and compositionally, I am a lot happier with it. There are still question marks about whether I will keep the current colours or if these will also experience an overhaul. But it’s going in the right direction and I can now work on bringing all the details into focus.
Back soon with more updates,
Arietta xx