Canal Reflection

Canal! I love canals... OK well recently they're annoying! Sometimes they're pretty, but sometimes, they are just a pain in the arse to sit next to and get attack by a swan, which wouldn't go into the water! But oh well. Life goes on! Anyway, I’m babbling! This is where I now shall reflect upon my canal work within the very first week of starting! This week was stressful in particular, because I was still very alone with the people who I was with. But not only have I enjoyed doing my sketches upon the canal I have also enjoyed that while doing this Visual project I have met the friends that I am moving in with next year! How awesome is that! But that's besides the point!

As I entered into the classroom for Chris to start talking to us about perspective, I had a very positive attitude to the subject because I had actually practised this type of work during my A-Levels. But once Chris had finished, I. Was. Shocked. I have never experience the feeling that “oh crap, I do not know any of this”. I knew the basics, the perspective, the horizon line, the vanishing point. I knew that all the lines with the picture would go into a distance at the vanishing point, (although they didn't actually do that in real life) that's how you perceive the world, and that's how I am meant to portray it! Brill! I was rusty when we first got out there! Never truly realised how dirty it'd be either (new to Leicester!). But once I had settled I started to get into the flow of things and felt I produced some good few prep sketches! Yeah the horizon line was a bit high but all the lines went to the vanishing point etc! Some prep sketches went a bit skew and all theory went out the window! But majority of the time I was quite happy! But looking through very few had the right horizon line. Which is disappointing, but I have acknowledged this!

Within my final piece I did exactly what I didn't want to do. I planned it all out on the page with the horizon line and managed to get everything to get to the vanishing point. I made sure that everything was sized correctly and in proportion, but I got the horizon line to high up. It looks more of the middle of the page rather than 1/3 of the page up. This makes it look more like I am standing or floating in mid air! I have also found that the Fibonacci curve within my work is out of proportion and that the main focus of my work as it is, is in the middle of river rather than where the vanishing point is. This is mainly skewed by my horizon line, which can be fixed with a new sketch. I only realized this as soon as I had started my bridge and this meant that I couldn't go back. I felt I was doing well with what I was doing so I carried on but with making note of the horizon line. This I will fix with a new picture! Over Christmas I will be doing more sketches of the canal and more prep sketches along with analization of the canal and its technical side of things!

Overall the things that I like most about what I have done is the main bush on the right, where there is detail in the leaves poking out from the mainframe of the bush. I also like the shadows on the path and river especially where the water glistens and has a very bright shine to it. Although that was hard to portray I enjoyed doing the water as well as the shadows around the bushes that have hit the water. The thing most disappointing about the whole thing is the horizon line and that I am floating in mid-air! (Which you know, I can do secretly)!