Thinking about dioramas and staging today. I’ve started these two canvases of views from Porthmeor beach. I’m doing them because I’m interested in making the landscape seem like a stage. But how do I do that? I think I need to research stages, stage sets. What makes a stage? Do I want to overthink it though? I want to add these strong angled rays into the paintings, they somehow I think will seem theatrical. Because the light is like stage lighting. Maybe I need to look at stage lighting… I think I need a nap first – still recovering from this cold!
Looking at Emma Webster’s paintings:
These rays of light are very strong and fake. I could add articifical light that wasn’t blocks. I could light up the little diorama I’ve built and add light that way. Inspired by Emma Webster. That would be very fun! I need a second light to do that – tomorrow?
I feel like I have picked a direction also. I was talking with Pip over email about the two directions I feel my work is going in. In my eyes the two types are abstract expressionist paintings vs. surreal, abstract landscape, dioramas. As of yet I have not painted any abstract expressionist paintings. How am I feeling about that? I feel like I am letting something go, and that feels both scary and relieving.
OOH could I shine a bright light on St Nicholas’ church on the hill in the little cardboard diorama I’ve painted, and then paint that lighting into the painting. The exciting thing there would be that I hope the flatness would show through – that the light is hitting a flat backing, rather than infinite sky, and create this weird impression.
Georgina Harris 