Project 8: Still Life with Background: Primary Ideas

All the photographs taken, what do I do know?.

I’m not quite sure which one I should choose there’s a lot that I like and quite a few ideas that I loathe. I think I’m going to start off with doing a few traditional still life subjects just to ease me into it. I’m not too worried about the background at the moment or whether to use a found still life setup or compose one myself. I’ll have a look at objects like fruit, bread, bottles, flowers and all the other subject matter that comes to mind when you mention a traditional still life. I have never like pictures of flowers they don’t do anything for me at all; at least with the object you get the smell. I’ve always said I would never do a painting of flowers but I might give it a go just the once and see if I can loosen up and make a more impressionistic mark then realistic. I am going to have to start off with some observation drawings to get me into the project.

Crumpled Paper: You simply screw up a piece of paper and draw it by observing the subject looking at the values and form to try and reproduce it looking three dimensional. I spent around 30 minutes on this lesson but quickly lost interest and started wondering off doing other things.

Bread on cutting board Graphite Pencils on Cartridge Paper

Final Design Bread on Cutting Board [Acrylic on Cartridge Paper]

Orange, Satsuma and a Lemon

DON'T FORGET TO CLICK THE IMAGES AGAIN ONCE THEY HAVE LOADED FOR A LARGER IMAGE...

This is my first and probably only painting of flowers; the medium is acrylic paint with acrylic paper as the support. I feel I loosened up with my brushstrokes and produced more of an impressionistic painting of flowers rather than a realistic image which was my Intention. The background I have made dark by using 3 colours to look like the Dutch masters earth colours, the light is coming from the front. 

For this piece I built a simple shadow box using a cardboard box with some dark material. I used a spot light clipped onto one of the boxes flap to help control the shadows. I only used two geometric shapes as I wanted to concentrate on the shadows, form and the reflected light. The piece was done in oil paints and took a long time to dry however this gave me more time to blend in some of the brushstrokes. This is my first time with oil paints so I just wanted to use two colours rather than buying a full set, I wanted to see if I like the medium before I decided to buy any more.