I chose to do a still life so I could apply a glazing technique using water-mixable oils (WMO), to try to achieve the drama of the chiaroscuro style of painting - using a lamp to light one side to create a more dramatic composition.
I looked for objects to inspire me which I felt would go well together and found a gold-coloured, antique-looking glass vase that I liked because of the light and shadow its shape produced with artificial light. I added my favourite houseplant, a potho plant, and began by doing some partial blind contour drawings and sketches to get used to the shapes.
I decided I would position my objects on a box covered in red fabric, and needed a third object to develop my composition such as a piece of fruit - an apple or a lemon. Because of the red fabric I decided that a lemon would make the more dramatic composition because of the contrasting colour, and having decided on the objects and composition I chose a canvas board 36cm x 28 cm as my support and began by drawing outlines using willow charcoal.
In doing outlines of possible compositions I realised that having potho leaves on the left – the same side of the vase as the lemon, was too crowded, and decided to keep them to the centre and right of the vase, and at this point I placed the light on the right. I wanted a three-dimensional composition and positioned the potho plant leaves so they extended forward into the foreground hanging over the box and chose as my colours:
Ivory Black for the monochrome tonal under-painting
Burnt Umber for the background layers
A mix of Cadmium Red and Alizarin Crimson for the fabric, as Cadmium was too warm and Alizarin too cold but a 50/50 mix was just right
Cadmium Yellow for the lemon
Sap Green for the potho leaves
For my medium I had used Winsor and Newton Artisan fast drying medium on my fruit exercise (1.1.a on my blog) and found it too glossy, and in searching for alternatives I came across Daler Rowney fast drying medium which looked less glossy. I decided to try that for the underpainting with the view to using it for the entire painting if I liked it.
However my experiments with the underpainting using the DR medium and WMO showed the drying time to be almost as fast as acrylic paint, making it very difficult to blend or spread the paint across the canvas, and it created a kind of film on the surface which lifted off too easily by later brush strokes or when using another medium. I decided therefore to go back to the W&N fast drying medium, applying it carefully to minimise the shine, spreading the paint gently with a fan brush where it looked too shiny.
To apply the paint I used a variety of Flats (2, 4, 6, 8 and 12) and Filberts (4, 5, 6 and 8) depending on the colour to be applied and the size of the area, and Fan and Stencil brushes for blending and spreading.
Before starting to paint I experimented with the mediums to make sure they would work with each other, and applied an Ivory Black acrylic wash to a small canvas board using thinner as a medium. Then working wet on dry I applied Cadmium Red acrylic with W&N Artisan fast drying medium and really liked the transparent effect and the brightness of the colour in the result
I began painting in thin layers, building up slowly and keeping the colours vibrant, starting with the dark background, then the fabric, the lemon, and the leaves. For the first layer of the leaves I used a mix of Sap Green and Cadmium Yellow, then Sap Green alone for later layers.
At this point I realised that even though the shiny gold of the glass vase picked up a lot of reflection from the fabric, the leaves and the lemon, the colour balance wasn’t right and I needed to change the colour of the vase to something cooler that would work better with the dark background, and the reds, yellows and greens.
I remembered a GF Watts painting I liked very much from a visit to the Watts Gallery two years ago which had more less the same colour combination, and played with a photo of my painting using Adobe Photoshop tools to see if the blue-purple colour of the dress in the Watts painting would work on my vase before proceeding and felt that it did.
Jane 'Jeanie' Elizabeth Hughes, Mrs Nassau John Senior (1828-1877)
George Frederic Watts, OM, RA (London 1817 - Compton 1904)
My final painting.
Updated June 2020
Self Assessment
I was looking forward to this module; Practice of Painting, because I haven’t painted with a wide range of media other than the soft pastel with which I am very comfortable. I think the assignment shows I have gained a reasonable understanding of the use of WMO though I know I need to experiment more with them and with the mediums designed for WMO.
And I am more experienced with the brushes and other tools for WMO, in knowing which ones work best for me and what can be achieved though I need to experiment with them a lot of more. I’m sure I can improve on the result and need to do a better job at the beginning with the tonal black and white layer to improve the three-dimensionality of the work.
I spent a long time agonising over the colour balance feel sure that more study on the theory of colour will make me more efficient in this regard. I wanted to make a dramatic painting using objects that reflect light easily and wanted to practise glazing techniques for future application in my portraiture work and to produce a chiaroscuro style piece of work. Clearly I need more practise but I enjoyed the exercise. I might come back to this painting when I have more experience.