For this assignment I decided to develop one of the sketches I did around the house for Project 4, based on two items on my bathroom window ledge - a classical Greek-style alabaster statuette of a lady drying herself - and a potho plant. I love the subtle colours and contrasts of the light coming through the window onto the white of the statuette and the green of the potho plant, and shining onto the brown window ledge.
I also like the simple arrangement of a vertical window frame behind the statuette, and am more excited about painting figures than just Still Life objects - at least this is a body. It’s a classical composition with a modern edge and high colour contrast, and I like the fact that it gives a lot of opportunity to work with negative space.
I used WM Oils on a pre-primed canvas board 50 x 40 cm in portrait format, and decided that the background colours would be those of the plain non-reflective glass of the window, and of the vertical and horizontal window frame.
The bathroom is a very private and intimate space so I wanted to convey this mood in my painting, to focus on the paint application and use of colour to convey the mood while maintaining accuracy of perspective.
Firstly I made some sketches and took some photos to help decide the composition. Unfortunately however some of the photos aren’t very good as I had the natural light coming in front of the camera.
Then I drew the outlines in Raw Umber and began painting the light and the mid colours
One of the main challenges was that the potho plant in the vase kept growing and changing position, so I tried to simplify and minimise the number of leaves I was depicting, and my final piece was -
Self-assessment
I think my work in this assignment shows more understanding of how to apply paint, using different mediums available for WM Oils, and I’m becoming more confident in painting. I’m also getting used to working with a variety of items: rags, brushes, my fingers, kitchen roll etc. and getting the hang of which ones to use to achieve the effects I’m looking for.
I think my colour mixing is quite good but I need more practice at harmonising colours and composition and on using colour to unify my compositions. My use of perspective is improving, I just need to be patient and observe carefully to get things right.
I sometime forget to include references to my research when writing my text – I’m absorbing and using the knowledge acquired in the research but I need to get used to making references to it in my writing.