Still Life Group In Tone (P. 58)

Still Life Group In Tone   (P. 58)

I wanted to move away from doing vegetables, flowers and fruit for this tonal study so I opted for a wine bottle, lager bottle and wine glass, I also picked an interesting background that I thought would compliment the paper I was using. For my colours, I chose a dark blue as my shadow, red as my midtones and white as my highlights, I then very lightly went over object with a touch of colour related to object, i.e green for the lager bottle and pink/purple for the rose in the wine bottle. I also added a bit dark yellow and orange to the wine glass, as a distorted reflection of the wood base.

I started by putting in my shadows throughout the picture including the background, then layered over the midtones, creating lighter midtones where I had not placed shadow and then added the highlights. Finally I tidied up the piece by highlighting the labels, adding a slight touch of pink (via red & white) and green where needed. I ended the piece by adding a brown shadow where the background touches the wood base.

I think I could of added more green and made the colour of the wine bottle a stronger red but I wanted the tone to come through, being that this was a tonal exercise. I am quite pleased with the restraint I have using in not using any black although I do wonder if I should of made the cast shadows on the base slightly darker. I am also quite pleased that I did not overdo the background, as I did not want it to look like a chess board obscuring the view of the bottles.
My ellipses are getting better I think and I must admit that I used a ruler to get the straightness of the bottles right. 

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What aspects of each drawing have been successful, and what did you have problems with?

Regarding my Still Life Project, I thought my piece turned out quite expressive and not like anything I had done before but because I was working quite quickly, I did lose a bit of accuracy on the piece. With the Line Still Life, I think I successfully gave each vegetable a distinct style and how I planned the composition came out really well. On the negative side, I think the more types of Mark Making that the artist knows, the more interesting the piece would be, perhaps I could of made use of the stipple effect more for example. In terms of my tonal study, I am satisfied with the wine bottle and glass, the lager bottle could of been done better. My favourite part is the wine glass and the transparency I achieved but I do feel the piece could of done with a bit more darker shading, particularly at the base of the wine bottle.

Did you manage to get a sense of depth in your drawings? What elements of the drawings and still life groupings helped to create that sense?

I think overlapping an object gives a sense of depth as do objects that carry an arch or ellipse. In the Line Still Life, I used the pepper's hollow interior to create depth, and the blackened interior helped support this. I used the parsnip at an angle that is coming towards the viewer, thus bigger at the front and smaller the back, and even without colour or shading, depth could be perceived.

What difficulties were created by being restricted to line or tone? 

With Line drawing, there is no shadow, no highlights and in what we see around us, it is how light interacts with objects that defines their form, so without this information, an object can seem flat with no three dimensional perspective. With only line to guide you, in a way, you have point the direction that the object is going but texture can be produce by the thickness and length of the line.A tonal study limits the pallet to only a few colours, possibly making it more difficult to distinguish different coloured objects from one another. The picture may have a certain harmonious feel but it is not a true representation of the still life in front of you.