Assignment One : Man Made

Having a 6th month old daughter, I knew quite early on that my Man Made Project would involve her toys, the colours, shapes and textures would be an opportunity not to be missed and following the success of the Natural Forms Assignment, I felt really confident in putting together a good piece for this Assignment. Initially I chose a stuffed toy, spinning top and blocks on a wood surface but through deduction, I switched things around and ended up with a longer furred teddy together with a smaller plush one, with the blocks and teething rattle.

Changing the donkey to the teddy was probably the hardest decision I had to make but I thought that the texture in fur would make the assignment that bit more interesting, even though I knew it would probably mean more work to create. Unlike with Natural Form Assignment, this was much easier to arrange and the objects seem to fall into place.

This draft was very useful in highlighting a couple of concerns I had, namely, I did not like the empty space behind the  toys and I was not happy with the smaller teddy`s face being obscured by the larger teddy`s foot, so when it came to doing the main piece, I was able to change these minor worries.

I have mixed feelings about the final piece, in all honesty I do not like my use of  using Tip Ex . I was trying to capture the synthetic shine from the tips of the fur but the Tip Ex pen proved too thick. I am probably most impressed with the shadows both on the large teddy and on the blue towel, and I found it useful to use a putty rubber to create light creases etc. Overall, there is a child-like quality to the picture that I like, but feel this project resembles an illustration as opposed to a Still Life ( if that is possible)

Photo taken as a reminder of the angle of the shadows (on a day when the sun was  out then in etc)