Still life: Experiment with mixed media

The exercise was to experiment using traditional and non-traditional materials.

When researching Modern Art and Still Life I was very struck with Dali’s ‘Basket of Bread’. I love that painting and decided to set up a composition based it for the exercise, though I was well aware that there was very little chance of producing anything as realistic as Dali’s painting.

To become familiar with the shapes in my composition I started with a blind contour drawing in one of my sketchbooks, drawing a very quick outline in ballpoint pen, adding yellow, light brown and orange marks with thin ‘Sharpie’ markers. I coloured the basked and the bread in pointillist technique, then added soft pastel, with the background loosely blocked in with a thick brown marker.

For my second attempt I used mixed media paper, and though the process was more less the same I used straight lines to block in the background, and instead of using soft pastel I used oil pastel, markers, and colour pencils, to create the shadows. Due to the texture of the paper however I could not get crisp lines or smooth colour in the shadows.

For my third attempt I used watercolour paper for my support, ballpoint pen to loosely draw the composition, black Indian ink applied with a brush for the background, and yellow ochre Indian ink and soft pastel to complete the image. I found however that the Black Indian Ink applied with a brush was too dark and not sufficiently smooth.

During my three attempts, as I applied the colours with the markers and the pastel I noticed that the drawings tended to became rather impressionistic, and given that my work tends to be very careful and very detailed I found that using the markers and the ballpoint pen help me to loosen up. Of the three I liked the result of the first one most.

Photo of my composition

My Inspiration Salvador Dali's Basket of Bread