Working in the style of Cy Twombly.

One of my main artists is Cy Twombly for his use of basic colour palettes and text in his work as a response to certain pieces of literature and/or mythology. I first created studies of his own work, "Apollo" and "Venus", in which I studied sections and the marks created within.

With these studies, I mainly focussed on colour and the types of marks that were created on the composition. The main mediums that were used to create the studies were acrylic paint in order to create the background and then chalk and oil pastel to create the individual shades of colour and marks. There was a lot of contrast between the types of marks created in the piece due to the more structured lines next to the more chaotic ones. I discovered that the work was quite evenly balanced as there were no areas on the piece that were dramatically more overpowering than some of the other areas in it. 

Whilst focusing on the same aspect as I did in the first studies, I noticed that I hadn't quite successfully captured the balance of the composition well enough due to doing smaller in depth studies of small areas of the work. When it came to creating a study of the most chaotic marks in the centre of "Venus", I overpowered my artist study board as it was way too empowering over the other studies; in order to fix this I went and added a thin layer of acrylic to allow balance to be achieved. I like the contrast inn the piece and how the off white colour in the background (created by white acrylic with a small amount of black ink) juxtaposes with the bright red/orange marks in the foreground. 

After creating these studies and creating two sketchbooks based on shape, tone and colour of my chosen object, which was a rusty pipe (links to the theme timeworn due to rusting over time), I went on to use the colour skills gained from these sketchbooks as a basis for starting my experimental studies. The following photos are from my first text sketchbook in which I used the phrase, "lovely letter" from the letters which I got from New York.

1 - I created the first experiment on this page by building layers of chalk in browns and a hint of black and then using my finger to smudge slightly to almost get a wispy effect. I liked the result that it gave and I went on to use it occasionally in the future experiments. Meanwhile, the bottom experiment on this page was very unsuccessful as it just appeared like I had done it for the sake of it. There was no distinct technique; it just appeared messy, which is different to Twombly's chaotic style.
2 - I n this experiment, I just changed the medium that I was using to see if I could see any difference from before when I was using chalk and oil pastel. However the use of watercolour did not work as much as I thought it would as it is very weak in colour and I feel like I have to control the medium more than I did before which is not what I wanted due to the fact that I liked twombly's chaotic mark making.
3 - On the other hand, this was the point in which I started experimenting with composition, however I did not particularly like this work as although it is chaotic, it is maybe a little too cramped and overpowering to be a successful composition,  which is why I went on to produce compositions that were much more subtle.
4 - I definitely preferred this composition to no.3 as I have chosen to show a lot of variety in colour, scale and layout, which I think works well and is something that Twombly manages to do with very little difficulty. I additionally liked the lettering that was vertical rather than horizontal, however I didn't want too much of this as it would most likely over power the piece.
5 - This is one of my favourite compositions that I created in this particular sketchbook as I think it is balanced quite well and I have used the smudging technique that I liked from the first experiment. However, I had previously discovered in another experiment that when the smudging goes in any direction, the composition just becomes dull and overpowering, which is why I had decided to just smudge in one direction.
6 - Meanwhile, this is also another one of my favourite experiments in this sketchbook as I like how I have managed to align the words with the bars that I had created through the use of chalk, whilst the font is fairly chaotic, there is still some form of structure within the piece, which is what I am interested in as a person. However, I began to think that it is still a little overpowering on the page, which is why I went to experiment with the use of white acrylic to see if this would increase the amount of subtleness in the composition. 

After creating colour studies of my chosen object, I liked the rusty colour and how maybe combined with a layer of white acrylic, I would be able to create my own off white colour, like Twombly does in his work.

1 - After I created this piece I figured that I had used too much colour in the piece and that I didn't use enough white acrylic to make the piece more subtle. Which is why I decided that next, I would add a thicker layer of acrylic to almost balance out the amount of colour being used.
2 - For this experiment I added more acrylic on top of the bottom layer of chalk so that the piece would be more subtle and I thin that it worked well. I additionally liked the list type composition of the lettering that I used down the side of the piece.
3 - For this experiment, I wanted to try and use less text work in my composition to see if this would increase the subtleness, however I don't like the fact that this leads to a sparse, spacious piece. just like the letters from New York, I want them to tell a personal story from someone around 60 years ago. This is why I went on to use another word in my piece, "Brooklyn". This also links to my experience in New York.
4 - Once again, I don't like the sparse layout and the emptiness of the composition. Additionally, I thought that I needed to experiment with the word, "Brooklyn" more in the font from the letter as it wasn't fully refined and perfected at this point, unlike "lovely letter".
5 - I tried experimenting with the composition in this piece by reverting back to the bars that I tried in my previous sketchbook. I aligned the lettering with the bars so that it appeared like the blotches of colour were specifically made for the letters, just like the way the letters from New York were made to be read by someone specific. I really liked the amount of balance of colour and white in this experiment and how the spreading of the acrylic has caused blotchier areas in the piece.
6 - This composition was by far my favourite in this sketchbook, as whilst resembling Twombly's, style, I have been able to make it my own with my own influences of colour and text. I like how the composition and scale of the text has created the impression of something being insignificant and forgotten, maybe over time. Additionally, I like the fact that I have spread the paint in a similar direction to the words as they get smaller.