Week 10

Painting with Feeling, Not Just Form

This week explored abstraction and emotional expression through colour and shape. I began with soft, layered backgrounds using three muted tones mixed with white — creating gentle spaces that felt like memory, mood, and atmosphere rather than just backdrops.

Using those same colours plus one more, I built a portrait where soft blends met sharp, blocky shapes. It became less about realism and more about a conversation between form and feeling — intimate and expressive.

Later, I shifted to a bolder, more graphic style. With contour tracing as a guide, I blocked in areas of solid colour — yellow, orange, green, and blue — using contrast to suggest depth and emotion. Without blending, each colour held its own, yet worked together to shape a sense of structure and atmosphere.

Abstraction, once daunting, now feels like a space to play, reflect, and connect with emotion on the canvas.

Further Readings:

Francis Bacon once said, “It was like one continuous accident mounting on top of another” (Bacon in Sylvester, 1975, p. 223). That feels true for me this week — letting the painting lead, trusting the process, and finding meaning in the unexpected..