This interactive presentation focuses on recording Hazel Hill Wood flora throughout the duration of the Beyond the Mind conference using an art practice approach of colour spectrum observation. Watt's Colour Spectrum series are rooted in a process that combines en plein air drawing and digital composition with concentrated experience and observation of a specific natural environment. The process focuses on colour visualiation: visually tuning in to, recording and examining the flora ecology of the natural world in a particular place at a particular time.
The approach draws on eighteenth and nineteenth century art and nature recording practices: en plein air observations by painter John Constable (during 1810-1837); naturalist recordings of Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selbourne (1789) and The Naturalist’s Calendar (1795) as well as the taxonomy of colour in Abraham Gottlob Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours (1814). Watt's twenty-first century Colour Spectrum process is subjective and experiential. The weather, growing season and unique ecosystem of the place all play their part.