‘Daffodil’ an exploration of colour.
I've recently been engrossed in a new screen printing project which has reignited my fascination with exploring the nuances of colour interaction. While the initial stages in my sketchbook is always a joy and sparks lots of potential ideas, I must tread carefully to avoid lingering excessively and succumbing to over-planning or heading off on infinate tangents and itterations.
My aspiration is for the print to evolve akin to a painting, where decisions unfold spontaneously, yielding an outcome that is singular and authentic as a small dedicated series.
Over-planning runs the risk of stifling the vitality and immediacy that I strive to capture, even in the abstract reinterpretation of previously painted daffodils, which remains my overarching objective, as it does in my paintings.
It's all too easy to fall into the trap of overworking and over-planning, resulting in a final product devoid of that essential human touch—a quality I sense might become increasingly rare as AI asserts its presence in the art world.
Adding final colour notes to ‘Daffodil.’
I had decided fairly early on to use the trio of Violet, Orange, and Green—an instinctive palette that I gravitate towards in my painting, and one that mirrors the harmonies abundant in nature. The exploration lies in calibrating the colour so as to amplify the warmth of the orange-yellow petals to their fullest vibrancy. Colour, to paraphrase the regarded theorist Joseph Albers, is in a constant state of flux by virtue of its interaction with neighbouring hues…
The resulting palette is 9 colours with 3 further accents painted on by hand. It retains an overall muted quality, and resides in a higher key compared to my typical work. Its an exploration of spatial arrangement and colour interplay, albeit in a more abstract manner, aiming to evoke a sense of balance and harmony.
In my oil paintings, I often work intuitively, with the subject directly before me, drawing from life. However, with screen printing, I approach the process differently, meticulously planning color schemes and plotting compositions inspired by my paintings. These techniques draw upon years of artistic experience and learning about colour relationships and reference to well thumbed books by distinguished colour theorists, particularly of the Bauhaus school.
I've found that different mediums and disciplines inform the other—insights from screen printing infuse my painting process and vice versa. My hope is that the cross-pollination of techniques not only enhances my understanding of each medium but also helps me to push my artistic practice to new and exciting places.
The finished series of 9 prints are now available here.
A short reel I made to show some of the process in brief, is featured below.