Matisse Project Questions

Describe the dominant complimentary colour scheme you chose. How did you make
them appear more dominant than any of the other colours you used? Explain your
reasoning for choosing these colours.

     The dominant complimentary colour scheme I chose was one that used Blue-Green and  Red-Orange. These colours appeared more dominant than the other colours I chose because every other colour use was either a darker hue of green or orange, or a wash of green and orange. When you darken a colour (using black) it takes away some of the sheen of the colour. The main colours in the colour scheme were mixed without black. The reason I chose these colours is that I wanted to make my colours stand out but not clash like yellow and purple.


Did you use pattern in the foreground or background to help create emphasis on a focal
point? Explain.

     I did not use a specific pattern in the foreground or background to create emphasis on the focal point. The only patterning were the two horses. Both of them used the same shape in the body so I thinnk that may have helped your eye move around the page.


Describe the process of planning out your design of the horse drawing in the style of
Matisse and the painting process? What were some difficulties that came up in the
process and some positive developments in your process?

     When I started my design, I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do so I hoped by turning the horses' body I had already traced on another piece of paper into smaller, wavier shapes. After that, I cut out these shapes and tried to place them slightly irregularly to change the shape of the horse. I didn't end up changing the shape of the horse too much. After that, I cut out these same shapes on paper I had painted. I cut out enough shapes to make two horses (one on each sheet). The reason I did this is that I wanted to be able to play around with the colour of the horses until I found something that worked. In the end, the second set of pieces were trimmed to make them smaller and then made into a smaller horse for my background. This horse was the opposite in colours from the other horse becasue I had used the left over shapes. To create the grass at the bottom of my picture I cut out rectangles on the green paper and then I used an X-acto knife to cut out grass. Doing this gave me two lengths of grass and gave some cool effects to them when placed side by side.
     Some difficulties that came up in the process were basically not knowing what I wanted to do. I think that If I knew what I was doing sooner, then my picture could have turned out a bit better. As I got to the end, I didn't know what to do with some of the empty space until Ms. Cockburn told me to step back from my painting. Suddenly the gaping white space seemed a lot smaller and I accepted that not everything needs to be filled in.