In the Wanderlust class this week, we were introduced to still life painting. The lesson was done on a canvas, and the artist was seriously unimpressed with those who included words in their painting, preferring the image to do all the work. Well, you know what they say – you have to know the rules to be able to break them. So I did. Here’s my homage to still life painting, done in my art journal, and complete with words. Enjoy.
This is another of my end-of-first-year exhibition pieces, this time for the four week still life module. It is white oil pastel and graphite on black paper, and took around four hours to complete. The items were all drawn separately and then grouped together for the piece with a single light source chosen. It was an exercise in creating ellipses which I now know are circles drawn in perspective!
I’ve spent all afternoon on my still life homework for the holidays… an exercise in two point perspective. An hour of reading, a couple of outline sketches and some more research led to a couple of hours doing all the construction with vanishing points at the zenith and nadir rather than on the horizon line – but I kinda like the effect. It then took another hour or so to enlarge, trace and shade the image, and here it is. Those that know, feel free to critique!
It’s Friday, and another mixed media lesson 🙂
This week we had to do a candle wax resist rendition of the still life – clear wax on whitish paper made the initial stages very tricky. However, as the dye wash revealed, I did fairly well! A bit of charcoal and a smidge of oil pastel here and there, and I was done.
Here’s a pic of this mornings session at college working BIG – A1 portrait size mixed media still life. The colour wash used textile dyes, a bit of bleach and then charcoal and white chalk embellishments.
And here’s what we were drawing…
It’s the end of term and hand-in time – and here’s what I’m handing in for my still life module. Hopefully you can appreciate that it’s a close up of a hydrangea head, and see that we’ve been concentrating on learning about tone and form this term. I’m really pleased with it, and once again the charcoal ground works wonders!
Here’s something I did earlier this week. It’s week 4 of the still life module and we’re working through the basics of line, tone and form. This is the exercise to bring them all together:
