Places and People

The places I visited this summer have been an influential part of the development of my work. The image above was taken in a small village called Portmeirion, located half an hour from where I live in North Wales, this stunning place offered me a range of initial starting points for my summer project. Home to colourful buildings and a truly breathtaking scenic landscape this location gave me valuable visual research. 

The Henri Matisse Cut-outs exhibition at Tate Britain was most definitely the catalyst to the vibrancy and injection of colour seen in my sketchbook. I was mesmerised by his larger pieces, the fluidity and movement of the cut out shapes inspired me to draw different patterns and sequences and transform them into designs for textiles.  

The simplicity of the context and content creates a wonderfully eclectic piece of art that manages to captivate the audience's imagination. During the course of developing my sketchbook I tried to interpret this concept, playing with the placement of a shape and how it relates to the rest of the piece, also choosing colours carefully in order to gain the correct balance.

Towards the end of the summer I visited the beautiful city of Lisbon, another vibrant cultural activity that contributed to my project. Witnessing such vast amounts of colour on a large scale proved to be a worth while experience as it has been translated in my work. I have worked mainly with light, vivid, bright colours because of what I have seen over the summer.  

I have been very fortunate in terms of gaining valuable and enriching first hand research, however being at home in a rural village surrounded by nature has been equally as enlightening, supplying me with ideas in terms of natural shapes and colour.