Experimentation DAY 2

Today i picked up from where i left off and continued to paint and create compositions for the music genre, 'Heavy Metal'. While creating these pieces i listened to multiple heavy rock classics, repeating key songs which stood out and allowed the sound to influence my work. I looked back on the research i had done with colours and emotions and decided to take that into consideration while creating these.

Trying to think of surfaces and physical forms which best represented heavy metal i thought kitchen foil was a good material to work with. I scrunched up the foil and carelessly unravelled it open, which caused the rips and folds. I dabbed paint onto the foil, in an attempt to bring out the creases and create a dark ambience and feel to the surface. 

Black was seen as a colour which related to power and anger, with this being key themes of heavy metal music i decided to use black as a dominant colour in my compositions and use hierarchy in my colours to structure my pieces. The smears of red helped darken the paintings, as the colour is best associated with anger, which i discovered in the survey, and helped give the paintings a more mysterious, yet explosive look.

I wanted the pieces to have connections with songs that stood out to me, so i began writing lyrics from the song to give those substance to the piece. I chose the song 'Chop Suey!' by System Of A Down. Also thinking back on the case studies, whereby it stated that some deaf people could hear lyrics of songs, i felt it was interesting to have words inserted on the page for them to see and hopefully give them a representation of what the song is also expressing. 

I scraped the painting onto the surface of the paper, not only to express a sense of direction, but to show the lack of direction and confusion in the songs i was listening to. 

As i continued experimenting i began to see a visual language forming, with a dark red, pitch black and silver colour scheme. Also blending, smudging and scraping paint off the pages to signify the chaotic, yet harmonious, sounds i detected. I decided not to cover the whole page with paint, bringing the white paper through the painting as throughout the songs i listened to there were key similarities; a sudden shift from piercing, loud noises to subtle, soft and much more relaxed melodies. Keeping some of the paper visible keeps the harmony and balance in the composition as well as signifying the abrupt shift in moods. 

To further develop these pieces i wanted to digitalise them, and create gifs through these pieces so they can further express a sense of movement. This would hopefully enable viewers to engage in an experience rather than just viewing paintings and having to figure out for themselves the concept behind them.