Daisy Mountford-White- Talking Colour
Reflection:
When observing my surroundings, I felt drawn to the London Underground. A maze of tunnels that thousands travel through daily, yet is often overlooked. People are often rushing through, failing to observe the array of colours and textures surrounding them, so I decided to take the time to look closer. I noticed a lot of wear around the tunnels, such as cracked paint revealing unexpected colours, intense textures carved into the walls, as well as objects such as elaborate doors. I also looked at the way light bounces off the screens, and the rain on overground platforms.
Using a variety of media, such as oil pastel, acrylic, ink, watercolour & collage, I captured these textures, exaggerating them and highlighting the muted, but varied colour palettes within.
In some pieces, I thought carefully about the way I applied the media- using small, delicate brush strokes to portray the texture of tiles, or collaging torn paper to recreate the rips and cracks in the paintwork. I also created some observational drawings, such as the blue door, which were more realistic and allowed me to focus on the object itself. In other pieces, I worked more loosely, as I found being free with the media led to more interesting outcomes that I may not otherwise have found. This included mark making, where I used a butter knife to apply the ink, resulting in a new texture that could be translated into patterns.
Overall, this task allowed me to explore a variety of media and look at subjects in an new way, giving outcomes that I may not have reached otherwise.
30th October 2022 @ 8:02 pm
This blog has shown me a whole new perspective on the London Underground. I agree with Daisy when she reflected on her blog that the underground is often overlooked, even though most of us use it so frequently. Daisy’s observational drawings of different areas and aspects of the underground emphasised the beauty of art in ordinary life. She has used a great array of mixed media in her works, resulting in different mark makings and textures in the drawings. I liked the cracked paintwork in particular, it seems like she might have used thick slabs of acrylic paint or paper mâché to imitate the cracked wall with peeling paint. The crack on the wall reveals the bright red paint underneath it, creating a contrast in colours, drawing the viewers eye immediately trying to uncover whatever that is hidden under all those layers of thick paint. However, I would have liked to see more drawings with a more vibrant colour palette as most of her drawings seem to stick with similar muted tones.
As a whole Daisy’s very distinctive style and she portrays the creative ability to analyse her surroundings and shows that in exploring and experimenting extensively in her artworks. I liked the edgy aesthetic that is consistent throughout the drawings. With that, her drawings connect together to tell us a story, leading us to the journey of seeing the London underground differently through her eyes, embracing all imperfections with it’s every crack and defect.