Chapter 2: Coloured Papers

A & B: Coloured and Printed Papers

(1) Cartridge paper was coloured in orange and blue with acrylic paints, either as a single colour or mixtures of the two. Later experiments with cut shapes (Chapter 3) showed that the most effective results were obtained when there were distinct (not too small) areas of each colour rather than a very "busy" pattern with the two colours. However some interesting intermediate hues and tonal effects were also produced in areas where the two colours mixed/overlapped.

(2) After painting a background colour, some paper was over-printed with a segment of a star shape cut into a rubber, using either a darker colour in the same hue or a mixture of colours. Overall I did not find this technique appealing, particularly because of the difficulty in getting an pleasing shape due to the lack of fine control when carving the rubber.

(3) Because of my lack of enthusiasm about the effects obtained with the printed pattern, I also experimented with some other techniques for adding a pattern to the paper. These included over printing with dabbed colour painted on bubble wrap, applying paint through a kitchen strainer and colouring paper with water soluble oil pastels and drawing star shapes in a darker hue over the top.

C: Star Shapes from Coloured Papers

This sheet shows a variety of star shapes cut from the coloured papers, using the sheets from Chapter 1 as inspiration. The starfish shape was still the one which appealed most to me, although some interesting effects were achieved by combining the two colours in some of the others.