Final Assignment ...

It's difficult to believe it's been two years ... twelve assignments - and this is the final artwork before the most important part of the course - the diploma portfolio works.  For now I am happy to breathe a sigh of relief I managed to get this far.  You can see the familiar brown envelope in which our artwork travels across the globe - 'students work of no commercial value' always makes me cringe a little. 

The assignment called for three or more flowers or berries and fruit brought together in a mixed composition.  Continuing from my previous post I managed to include the final elements - being the strappy leaves of the society garlic, the stems of all the subjects and to refine the painting as much as time would allow.  I can't believe I still have plenty of that blue painter's tape left - I use it to secure the paper to the perspex board and it clashes terribly with my painting - time to get a neutral coloured tape :)  It is supposed to keep the artwork flat while working with watercolour.

As you can see here it doesn't work as well as hoped - but then I work quite wet and always end up with warped paper.  I love to see the way the colour interacts with the wet paper - I am not so keen on working dry.

Back to my method of stretching artwork  - I was organised enough to have two days spare to use this technique of flattening the artwork on completion.

Voila!  Nice and flat - and no ugly blue tape.  I could have done a better job of the stretching but rushed it a little and after talking to another artist have picked up a few more tips to assist with an even better result.

 Now it's back to the drawing board.  While this is our final regular assignment of the course - we now launch into the diploma works - three artworks required in half the time.   They are also worth around forty per cent of our overall mark which is quite daunting.   There are a lot of weary students around the world having to do some serious time management to meet the final course deadline in three months.  Fingers crossed we have learnt enough along the way to help us all over the line.  Thank you for your lovely comments and for being a great support - it makes the road a lot less lonely ...

All images © Vicki Lee Johnston