Assignment One

While finishing off my studies on darker grounds, I began assignment one.

For this assignment we are asked to produce a painting of at least A3 in a subject and medium of our choosing – a still life, landscape or interior are suggested.  I decided to paint an interior scene from my house – it is a little cold for landscapes at present (January!) and having just painted two still lifes, decided the interior of a nice warm house would be a good option!

My final assignment for the drawing course was based on interiors, and required me to do sketches all around the house.  One room I particularly liked drawing was my study (although I did not use this for my final drawing).

My study is quite traditional, as we have lots of books, and has a dark green leather desk and captain’s chair in one corner, with bookshelves and a dark, racing-green, button-back wing chair in the corner.  It was this corner I decided to paint.  It is quite a cosy corner – a friend who visited at Christmas said she just wanted to curl up in the chair and read a book.  That is the emotion and image I wanted to get across in this painting.

I began this assignment by completing a drawing using my Rotring art pen – I prefer to do initial sketches in pen as I think it stops you fiddling too much; you can’t rub out so you have to observe more closely and just ‘get on with it’.   And because you can add water to the ink with the Rotring pen, this allowed me to get a general idea of the basic tonal values.  I like this composition – because it’s a corner, you get a sense of perspective and interesting angles created by the bookshelves.  I think you also get the idea this is an intimate space – my only concern here was the cropping of the chair, so decided to do a sketch which included the whole chair (drawn sitting on the floor).

All sketches in sketchbook one, marked with blue flags.

The second sketch I completed sitting in a chair from the same corner and, again, I completed this in pen but left it as a linear drawing.  I expanded the scene slightly to include the bottom of the chair and the edge of the fireplace (marble and wood with a chrome edging).  This allowed me to add more detail in the sketch and, thinking ahead to the colours of the painting, brought in the fireplace wall which is a deep, reddy terracotta colour.  It also brought in the glass vase on the edge of the fireplace which is an interesting swirled pattern in green and white.  I completed this in daylight so, again, the light is coming from the opposite site of the chimney breast.   Keeping the chair central to the composition, I think, gives the best angles to include all the background scene and bookcases. 

My only concerns with the objects here are the two music systems on the shelves behind the chair in the corner.  One is matt black and the one on the shelf above is silver, so they don’t really go with the overall warm (brown and green) tones of the rest of the painting, so I may remove these and place other objects on the shelves to add more interest.  The shelves directly above the chair actually contain objects that will be interesting to paint:  the top shelf has a large glass orb and two brass candlesticks; the shelf below has three elephants (two glass and one mahogany); and the shelf below has a Vietnamese brass drum in front of the hi-fi (which I will probably exclude).  I have quite an interesting glass vase on another shelf in the study so I will probably place this on the shelf directly above the chair. 

The shelves immediately behind and to the side of the chair are very shaded so will add good, dark contrasts behind the chair.  

I want to study the chair and the vase further so will do individual studies of these.

Although this view is already quite cosy and intimate, I wanted to add more of a feel of warmth and, based on my research on chiaroscuro (especially Joseph Wright of Derby), I felt adding a warm glow would improve the scene.  I have a desk lamp with a yellow glass shade so, although the bulb is clear, this does add a very warm glow when in use, so I placed this on the fireplace, shining down towards the chair as a reading lamp.  I may even place an open book on the chair to give the impression someone will soon be returning to carry on reading here.

The next sketch I did was a detailed study of part of the leather chair (in graphite – 20 mins).  This was to carefully look at the effect of the padding/buttoning on the back of the chair and to study the highlights/creases/folds in the leather.  On looking carefully, I especially noted the tonal differences in the leather – not just because of the buttoning, but the lighter areas created by sitting in the chair, and rubbing some of the dye out of the leather.

I then added my table lamp to the view and did a small study of the effect of that light on the bookshelves.  As the light is centrally placed in the view, I found that the lamp cast shadows both upwards and downwards, and created much darker shadows and tonal contrasts.  The effect was probably greatest on the shelves –the top of the ‘box’ created by the shelves/ underside of shelves – where the lamplight casts darker shadows.  This effect was also seen in the shadows cast by the ornaments against the underside of the shelf above and created some interesting dark areas.  The lamp also increased the darkness in the shelves directly behind the chair and the tonal contrasts on the leather of the chair.  Looking down the scene, the vase is more reflective and casts an interesting shadow on the floor.

Looking at the colours in this view, they are fairly muted hues - the dominant colour is the green of the chair (also in the vase).  The chimney breast is terracotta which will add a contrast against the green, as will the light oak colour of the bookcases themselves.   The yellow lamp adds a warmth to the view and also gives reflections off the glass of the cabinet doors.  The books themselves are a multitude of colours – but I will probably simplify these to avoid distracting the eye from the chair.

I think I will try to make the chair (and the vase) the main detail in this painting by completing these in more detail than the rest of the scene.  If you are looking directly at an object (say the chair) the farther away from it an object is, the less it is in focus and/or detail, so I hope to be able to depict the top levels in less detail than the lower ones and the area directly around the chair.

Colour study in my sketchbook using watercolour for speed.

For this painting I wanted to use as much as possible of what I have learnt so far in this section and so quickly reviewed the exercises:

I need to think about brush strokes and mark-making: this has always been a bit of a struggle for me as I tend to concentrate more on the form, colour and detail of an object/scene rather than the mark-making.  So, I should think carefully about how I could use my different brushes to paint this scene successfully and interestingly!

Don’t think I will apply the paint without brushes here as the scene is quite detailed and using palette knives/other implements, I feel, would be better suited to a more expressive painting.

·         Transparent v opaque paint/overlaying washes.  Transparent layers over a light or pale ground give a very pure, bright colour and can make the paint almost glow.  I think it would be good to paint the chair, lamp and vase in transparent layers as this would make them stand out from the darker areas in the background.  I will probably need to use white and/or opaque mixes for the books, and also for the colours on the wall and floor to give a matt effect.  Transparent dark tones over paler opaque ones would also be a good way to create the shadows as the original underlayer would show through.

 Chiaroscuro – this will not be a major element in this painting, although I do like strong contrasts.  The strongest contrasts will probably be on and around the chair (with the light shining on it and the shadows that produces) which will also have the effect of drawing the eye to that area of the painting.

Coloured grounds – As it states in the handout notes, a warm ground is most often used in interiors, so I will do some tests in my sketchbook to see which colours would work best.  A yellowish tone would obviously be an option here (either a clear yellow or ochre).  The other option would be to use a darker ground as the painting will be lit by lamplight rather than daylight.  I think if I did this, I would have to decide, in advance, which areas (probably chair, light and vase) to keep white in order to allow the brilliance of the transparent layers to show through.  I will do these studies in acrylic (mainly for speed) so I can decide in advance which approach to use.

     First coloured ground for study – cad yellow light and cad yellow medium with a hint of ochre.

      Second coloured ground to study (purple and raw umber) actually much more of a maroon colour than this photo – has come out a bit light.

S