Project 3
Exercise 4
In this task, the brief asked that we worked towards creating an image in a single colour, combining both natural and man-made objects. I was super excited for this piece, as it seemed like it was going to be a lot of fun and it gave me chance to try out something I’ve never done before.
Not long before beginning, I spoke with another student and asked for some advice on how I could lift the objects out of the page and bring my creation to life. I was advised to begin by drawing all of the ellipses first, as this would support me in ensuring the curved edges and openings of each item were the same. Previously, I’ve found it tricky to get these parts of any items right, so I took his advice, gave it a whirl, and he was right. It helped me more than I can even explain.
I chose a bottle, an espresso maker, a mug and an apple. All of these items were different shades of red.
First, I drew the ellipses, then once I felt these were accurate, I began to build upon the structure and shape of the objects. After this, I loosely added any lines or features that were important to the form of the object.
I used a paper plate as my palette. As the items I chose were red, I experimented with a range of paints to get a variety of red tones. Using white, black, red and brown I was able to achieve more shades of red than I thought existed, which was really exciting, as I could already see my piece coming together.
For the bottle of rosè I needed a very pale pinky shade, which was easily achieved with a mixture of red and white. The mug and the espresso maker were very similar shades of red, so creating the colours for those was simple. They are very vibrant red, however, the parts of them in shadow became very dark, so combining red and black with a small amount of brown created a burgundy shade. At first, I was unsure as to whether this would be the right tone for those sections, but it ended up working really well and added a lot of realism to the painting.
Being a natural object, the apple had many different tones of red. Parts of it were dark red, others were almost pink, however, much of it was in shadow as I had placed the apple in the mug. I used a combination of all the paint shades I had already created, and it turned out really well. I was able to layer certain colours and darken or lighten them. I even found that adding the tiniest dab of black or white transformed the colours entirely, which was really interesting.
The Final Outcome
For once, I am so happy with the outcome of a piece.
I spent a full day and then part of another day on it, which is the longest I have spent on an exercise. But, I am so glad that I did because the outcome is better than I imagined it would be. Experimenting with a vibrant colour such as red, and exploring with all the different shades I could create, was a lot of fun. It is definitely something I want to focus on again.
The trickiest part of this for me was the espresso maker, as it’s a very tricky shape and structure to form, especially for someone that is very new to this way of creating, however, I think I didn’t do too bad a job. I’d even go as far as saying I did a pretty good job. Watching the whole piece come together by adding light tones, then mid tones, then dark tones was really satisfying and it’s amazing how adding even a small amount of a particular tone to an area works wonders. For instance, the areas where the light is hitting the object most is created using a dash of red with a lot of white in it. This created a pink-ish tone that is almost white. Adding this to the areas that I could see the light hitting transformed the objects and, immediately, it was a completely different piece. I was blown away by the impact this tiny addition had made, and was inspired by the fact that I was the one that had made this huge difference.
My favourite aspect of this piece is the bottle, as I think I’ve accurately captured the shape and structure of it. This is something I have really struggled with in the past, and I truly believe that it’s due to the advice of accurately drawing the ellipses first. This piece doesn’t look flat, which a lot of my other pieces have, so I have a lot to thank this fellow OCA student for. I will definitely be mindful of that tip in all my future pieces now.
Jesy Gilkes 