Summer Inspirations | Part 1

Agnes Cecile & Cate Parr

Over the summer I really got into watercolour painting. I built up a collection of images I liked over summer and many seemed to include a water colour element. I really like the way colours can be blended together using watercolours, and that they can give the effect of water movement on the page. My two favourite artists that I came across are Agnes Cecile and Cate Parr.

Cate Parr is an amazing artist, she creates portraits of people using watercolours but completely changes the colour palette. Instead of the conventional colours in reality she uses colourful pastels that compliment eachother perfectly. She uses a lot of pinks and purples which I am surprised I love so much as I usually am put off by overuse of these colours, however the shades she uses are really appealing. The way she puts the colour on the page is really natural and hand drawn, there is a lack of detail in some of her work but that is what makes the piece so effective, like her painting of Kate Moss. Her messy technique is what appeals to me as sometimes I feel too neat and want to branch out a little more.

Agnes Cecile also uses watercolour in an inspiring way. She is similar to Cate Parr in the sense that she doesn’t use conventional colours, however she is more detailed particularly when she paints facial features. I love her use of dripping paint in conjunction with her images and I think her style of painting is fascinating. During my summer work I tried to take inspiration from both of these watercolour artists in my painting of Beyonce. I chose Beyonce because at the time she was in the news over her marriage with Jay-Z and also because of her involvement in the VMAs. She also has amazing facial structure which I thought would be interesting to paint.

My watercolour painting inspired by Agnes Cecile and Cate Parr

Burberry AW14 collection

Continuing on the topic of watercolours, I researched into designers that use watercolour prints in their collection as fashion is the direction I think I want to go in, so I am trying to build up knowledge of different fashion designers. This is when I came across Burberry’s AW14 collection. I absolutely love the watercolour effect of the print used on their scarves and coats. There is a clear hand-painted feel that is very rough but planned and the colour use is remarkable because it contains so many colours yet looks so chosen and put together. I really love the layered structure of the collection, which lead me to look into collaging and composition in my project.