Still life: Monochrome

In my tutorial my tutor mentioned as a problem that the colour of the curtains was clashing with the colour of the dress, and that I could improve this by rubbing out some of the colour in the curtains and further shade the man‘s suit - which I did it and it considerably improves the drawing.

Updated 08.04.2018

Original

The exercise was to create an image in a single colour, combining natural and man-made objects and contrasting materials.

I now realise that somehow I misread the instructions, as I did not include a natural object in my composition. As however it took me a long time to do this work I am nevertheless putting it forward for your consideration.

The composition is based on a porcelain figurine of a couple in ballroom dancing pose bought in a charity shop, with a fabric backdrop intended to suggest a theatrical curtain and give a sense of context and space.

To become familiar with the shape and pose of the couple I did two sketches in blue pencil, rotating the figurine 45 degrees.

What I managed to capture effectively, and what hasn’t worked so well -

My husband and I are keen competitive ballroom dancers, and therefore especially aware of correct posture, which is what attracted me to the figurine in the first place.

I think I managed to capture the figure of the lady fairly effectively, with the shading of her dress giving a suggestion of her pose, and the shape of her back and arms well depicted, especially around the shoulder and upper back. I am also happy with the depiction of the man, especially his right leg.

The depiction of the curtains however does not work well, the shadows need to be smoother, which was difficult to do with coloured pencils, and the angle of the base of the figurine is not entirely accurate.