I was lucky enough to be in Cardiff attending a Museum Association course, whilst i was down there, decided to see the sites. Taking a tour around Cardiff Castle i became fascinated with the framing of the monument though the variety of windows and openings in the wall around the site. The included picture shows part of the 19th Century Mansion element commissioned by the Butes viewed though a Norman Arrow-slit in the an older section of the castle.
Caerdydd Castell – Cardiff Castle
The Bute family ‘brought power and prosperity to Cardiff, which they turned from a sleepy backwater into one of the greatest coal exporting ports in the world.’ There seemed to be a deep sense of pride felt by some residents of the city in ‘there’ castle. Between 1770 and 1927 the Marquess’ of Bute transformed the castle ruins ‘into the Gothic fantasy we see today’. The period with the greatest impact was undoubtedly during the 3rd Marquess time, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute and his notable architect William Burgess, created a wondrous fantasy castle.
This photo whilst not of highest quality takes a new angle on what is a recognisable monument. I developed it further by simplifying its shapes into coloured blocks this was an interesting process, which i deliberately chose the rudimentary computer program ‘Microsoft Paint’. It was a nostalgic process with my taking me back 16 years to childhood and mucking about with colours and shapes on with Microsoft paint on my parents computer. Their is something wonderful about working with a basic program, role over photo-shop!
This plan was then used as a guide to base a painting from. This painting whilst a rough experimented, painted over the top of an existing unrelated landscape study. Would prove to be a vital link which comes forth in later stage of the project.
The initial painting used Blue masking tape to create a block coloured composition, whilst the secondary layers of painting tried to work with a more limited brown based pallet, carefully modulating to attempt to create slightly different tones. By this point had been pushed to destruction and had become over-worked. The heart had gone from painting.
Sources: Cardiff Castle – Official Website
Chris Corish Art 