Module 3 - Spiralling into Colour - Chapter 1 Research

A new module and I'm delighted to be working in colour again. The first chapter, as always, involved researching spirals and of course, once you start looking, you find them everywhere! The difficulty is narrowing down your area of interest.

 Fig.1

I began by looking at the different types of spiral and, as I usually do in my own projects, looking at word definitions. I usually find that this helps me to focus my mind and in my other sketchbooks I often also find poems that relate to the topic I'm looking at. No poems here though ... yet. 

 Fig. 2

Next I looked for examples of the various spirals I'd found amongst my images of naturally occurring spirals and attempted to draw some of them. Favourites have to be the ammonites and shell interiors though the photograph of the twining plant tendril is also fascinating.

 Fig.3

 I have a bit of a 'thing' about chimneys (especially the beautifully decorated Tudor ones at Hampton Court and the like) and photograph them whenever I visit a National Trust property or when I'm just out and about. So I had lots of images of spiralling chimneys and Gaudi never fails me either, whether it's his fanciful chimneys, his use of colour, his beautiful mosaics or his naturalistic forms!

 Fig.4

Finally I looked at spirals in art from a variety of sources. I found this quote (not a poem) by Hundertwasser about spirals, which I found interesting. A recent visit to Harrogate Spring Flower show had given me lots of spirals too as there was a whole section in the floral art marquee on the subject. I found examples from across the world and through time and managed to draw a few examples of these. Never a confident artist, I have to say I was quite pleased with how the drawing of the pot came out - actually recognisable.

Fig. 5

I couldn't actually find any spirals in my house to do rubbings of but did find these two rubbing plates and then played with lots of spiralling patterns within a snail's shell in a kind of Zentangle style.