Mai Yu – Talking Colour

The aim of this task ‘Talking colours’ is to introduce myself to colour and primary research through the use of practical and critical observations and drawings. I believe that I have demonstrated this successfully in my work in which I will analyse in the following points.

To start off my research, I went out and explored the areas of West and Central London with my group mates to find inspiration. Being somewhat new to the city of London, I was overwhelmed by the lively community, especially in Portobello Market with all of the diverse cultures that I saw there. As I come from a small quiet town near Manchester, I found it very exciting to be in this environment; it was effortless finding inspiring pieces of art and objects that I saw on the streets. Many of my inspiration stemmed from plant life around the markets, tile art in tube stations, the TFL underground map and a mural that was created to commemorate the tragic Grenfell Tower fire.

I enjoyed playing and experimenting with different styles of art that I wouldn’t normally do. I’ve learnt to be more open minded in my drawings in order to be up to date on my tasks. My usual style of art features more intricate details that are quite time-consuming, however I decided to let go of this mindset of being ‘perfect’ and really challenged myself at taking different approaches and looking from different perspectives. An example of this can be evidenced in image 2 where I painted on a brown paper bag and held it backwards against the light. This revealed the grainy sandy texture of the paper along with each brush stroke inside the hearts. It was interesting to see how the light emphasised the texture and how it affected the colour of the hearts, making it appear quite dull, which contrasts to how it really looks on the other side where the colour of the acrylic paint is quite bright and bold.

Surprisingly, a medium that I have never worked with before is oil pastel. I think this medium lays colour down really generously if you want to achieve bold colours depending on how hard you press down. In my oil pastel drawing of the flowers (image 7), I’ve noticed that the texture gets quite grainy with lighter pressure on the paper. This triggered my thinking of how this would look like in textiles in terms of what different kinds of material that I could potentially use to imitate that grainy texture.

I continued to explore colour through my other drawings – take image 3 as an example. I based this off my own drawing of the London underground tube map (image 4) where I drew part of the map over a background of receipts. I chose to use receipts because it was quite a unique way to add texture but also the faded monochrome colour will emphasise and contrast from whatever bright colours that I add on top. I started to emulate each tube line in their own colour; instead of drawing one straight line, I drew them in lots of little vertical lines going up and down across the paper which then form an irregular line with different thickness to it. I repeated this process, wrapping each line into and around each other which gives an abstract feeling to the drawing as the original map begins to become a blur of colours.

In conclusion, I think this first task went really well; I am really proud that I was able to come out of my comfort zone and experiment with different media and techniques. To develop my work further, I think it would be quite valuable if I experiment more on different surfaces, maybe even working on unorthodox materials rather than just paper. As a result, I truly do believe that I have gained more confidence and experience with drawing, experimenting, observing, and above all, just having fun with creating!