THE ISOBAR 100 PROJECT

 

Inspired by the #100dayproject community and Elle Luna, I started this abstract watercolour series.  The Isobar 100 Project was an exercise in daily painting. It was structured in a way that I was working within limitations. I did these works in batches, so while maybe not painting every day I was working on the same theme and project every day.

At the centre of the project was a fascination with Australian Weather maps or Synoptic charts.

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The weather map, also known as a synoptic chart, is a simple representation of the weather patterns at the Earth’s surface, showing the locations and movements of the different systems.

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Isobars
Isobars are the plain lines curving across the map. They connect points with the same mean sea level air pressure (weight per square area of air above). Some isobars have numbers on them showing this value in hectopascals (hPa).”
— Australian Bureau of Meteorology

I was able to capture screen shots of daily synoptic charts over the 100 days. I collected loads of these images, printed them, then transferred the lines (isobars) to watercolour paper. The next step was to paint those lines with art masking fluid to keep the lines colourless when I added watercolour.

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Over the 100 days I played with different colour combinations and techniques. Combining watercolour, and watercolour pencils as well as ink and water soluble ink pencils in different ways to see what would happen. I enjoyed the limitations, and the structure of the project. Less time spent worrying or thinking about ‘what to paint’ the base was set. The fun was combining the colours and letting the water blend and mix the colours. There are a few colours I never would have imagined, some combinations that just sing and even the bad ones aren’t that bad. 

The project was so much fun, there was a little bit of a lull toward the end as I searched for new combinations and tried not to repeat myself or lose momentum and make stale feeling work. It turned out that a few of the last ones are now favourites. I’ll be adding to this page as I get around to editing them all. That became the biggest pain point of the project. I wanted to be able to make prints straight away… but I found my then method of editing out the blank paper so very time consuming and tedious. Over the years I have improved and learned new methods, so, fingers crossed all 100 will see the light of day / the internet soon… years later. 

x mish

 

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  1. Ocean Teal - The Isobar 100 Project #1, 2017
    Watercolour on paper

  2. Purple Reef - The Isobar 100 Project #2, 2017
    Watercolour, and watercolour pencil pigment on paper

  3. Tangerine - The Isobar Project #3, 2017
    Watercolour on paper

  4. Coral Candy - The Isobar Project #5, 2017
    Watercolour on paper

  5. Secret Depths - The Isobar Project #7, 2017
    Watercolour on paper

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