Continuing my research on how my final work will look like, I continued experimenting with how colours can work together in an image. The colours namely blue and red will act as contrasts in temperature as Goethe has mentioned in his research in the way we associate colours in our culture. However, there are still difficulties that i find working with colours although oil pastels blend pretty well.
Seeming to be failing with more tries, i got frustrated and did an abstract symbolic composition which i thought could work with more exploration…but, I will leave that to another time because I have to be realistic and keep in time with finishing my work. I cannot explore too far from something that has a higher chance of working out.
From the last consult, I am also getting colour composition ideas from William Blake who is an English poet who paints! He is from the romantic period hence most or else all of his works are related back to nature values which are addressed in my final work idea. I could not adopt his style of drawing form, but what i did pick up was the use of triadic composition. In his works, he often uses red, blue and yellow. By adding yellow in my composition, i felt that it really brings out light and hence brings out an idea of the divine: where the divine in my work relates to divine nature.
Moving away from multiple colours, I decided to see how monochrome works and work with single colours as i would work with a pencil in drawing a subject. The result was pretty good. I realise that sometimes I am so blinded by colour theory that i forget how i naturally work with tones and shades resulting in a less natural representation. So here you see the monochrome blue eye. Eventually i worked on a red eye and went to add yellow to that to see how that works. From this practice i found how colours in my work should not work as colours representing colours per se but colours should work in representing light. Thats what colours are anyway. Colours are light and colours are not colours in that sense. I tend to forget that.
also, to spice things up, I intend to push myself on presentation format. I’ve never played with presentation format in my previous assignments and so for this final one, i thought I should definitely give it a shot. So i spent my weekend getting some simple materials and drafting some ideas on how to present and frame my squares. I hope it doesn’t end in chaos. 
This is what i am doing now. Working on my final squares. Symbols, colours and frame positions. I hope this final work will be a good one for all of you.
Hi Hsin Wei,
Thanks for your update. 🙂
I read with interest on your current progress – especially how you brought in the notion of “divine” – I suppose you can start thinking about cultural relevance as well. How there are various ideas of ‘nature’ and various ideas of the ‘divine’. That also has a direct implication in Saussure’s idea of semiology – for instance, what would the word ‘chilli’ (and hence the icon of a chilli) mean in different cultures? In Singapore, calling someone a ‘chilli padi’ has a certain connotation because culturally, there is an attribute given to the plant (and vice versa on people/things). Given Blake’s understanding of nature, it could be something entirely different from yours here as well. Could your work reflect your deeper understanding of ‘nature’?
What about divinity? How do various religions and schools of thought incorporate colours into their idea of the ‘divine’? Are there similarities or differences? Iconographically, the might be some overlaps and differences as well. 🙂
A reading on the role of divinity and colour:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta19.htm
I like how you are pushing yourself further in terms of composition and layout – could there be any reference to ideas of nature and divinity as well? For instance, the golden ration holds a certain idea of what would considered ‘sacred’ geometry. How much more can we push this idea of nature and divinity for your concept and execution? 🙂