Painting Sketchbook Studying Machowski

These pages are of a separate sketchbook that I started for my individual artist studies and these pages are looking at my first artist Machowski and particularly his use of colour and his use of mark making.

This first experiment in this sketchbook is a simple one I decided to take a tiny section of Machowski'd work and look and the colour and how its applied so this first experiment is just with simple cardboard and paint splatters and this effect is far too simplistic for what Machowski achieves. I need to come back and refine this and add more layers of colour and splatters similar to my artist.

The second page in this sketchbook is taking a larger section of the work and looking at again the colour and how it is applied and this time it is done with nothing but cardboard as I wanted to see if I could mix the colours on the page rather than on the palette in the conventional way as this is what Machowksi's work looks like and is what I want to replicate, and practice to do myself.

The third page in this sketchbook is less looking at colour and more with the way it is applied and this was done with paintbrushes to dab paint onto the page and then using cardboard making swift one marks to mix the paint together and this much more closely represents how Machowski's work looks and is what I need to be practising and refining.

The fourth page of this book contains a black, white and red experiment applied with only cardboard with didn't work as well as I wanted to as it doesn't gain the same effect as before. and on the right hand side of this page is and piece that is applied with a banana skin as when looking at the texture of the skin I noticed that when it had paint on it, it looked similar to the piece on this previous page and I wanted to see if it would work unfortunately it didn't and I need to come back and refine this piece.

This page in the sketchbook is done with only a spatula as I wanted to see if I could make single lines and build them up over time to create a similar effect to Machowski. whilst it didn't garner the same effect as I wanted it created an unusual effect itself and something that I want to come back to and experiment with more in the future.

This two experiments are done as in the background of Machowski's piece is a very light almost watercolour like tone to the colours and I wanted to see if by using watered down ink and then apply white emulsion over the top to make it more subtle while this didn't work in the way I wanted it to it gave me an idea that I tried on the next pages which I think really worked.

On this page I did similar to before but rather than applying ink, I applied acrylic paint and then emulsion and then scrap back into the emulsion to expose the colours underneath. After trying this I think it really works and is something I would like to continue doing this year as I love the subtlety of the colour and how textured I was able to paint using this method.

I wanted to try the previous method again but on a larger scale to make sure it really works and doing it again and practising it again has proven why I liked the original experiment so much and I would love to continue painting in this textured manner and applying it to my other uses of paints and into my installations.

After trying it one more time I wanted to see what applying multiple layers of emulsion would do and unfortunately the emulsion whilst being a bit too impasto and dry it meant that all the colour underneath wasn't exposed as much as I wanted and didn't garner a similar effect to before, I'm however glad that I tried this now than later and regretting my decision, and potentially ruining a piece of work.

This piece of work I wanted to do similar to before I went off on a tangent about my idea I had on the previous pages and continue to experiment with the way the paint is applied to the page and I decided to use thread from a blanket I had brought in to represent as the expressive flicks of paint that Machowski does, and after I did this I wiped the paintbrush on the blanket and then the idea for 'Blanketed Feelings' was created and I did my first installation.

After coming back from my first installation I continued to look at how paint is applied in Machowski's work and I decided to apply the paint using my fingers as this would allow for greater control over my marks and where the textured bits in the pieces are with the one on the left being without emulsion and the one on the right with I think the experiment on the right is much more successful than the experiment on the right because despite the colours being very bold the way the marks are applied are hidden when emulsion is applied and I really like the way the paint is applied in these pieces so this lead me on to continuing to apply the paint with my things to see what effect it would gain me.


These experiments are done both with finger painting and I feel they are both successful as they I believe show the closest resemblance to Machowski's work and the way he applies the paint and how he mixes the colours on the page rather than on the palette and this is something I want to carry on exploring for a little more in my book as I feel it is very exciting and allows me greater control over what I do and how it looks whilst retaining the subtlety that I want in my pieces.