Assignment 2 continued

Researching Vuilllard’s working methods, I found that he often used board instead of canvas as it was more absorbent and so made the paint finish more matt.  He also used very dry oil paint to create texture and frequently painted onto a neutral light grey ground as a foil for his rich colours.

My favourite of the two paintings above is “Anemones” so I went back and looked at it for a while to see what particularly attracted me to it; I decided it was the rich, warm colours contrasted with the bright blue flowers.  Also the fact that the background objects are ambiguous and the artist has achieved depth in the painting by using aerial perspective (background indistinct, flowers sharper) rather than linear perspective.

With this in mind, I went back to the drawing board (literally!) and changed some of the objects – I added another swatch of the same fabric, added a small earthenware jug and some peaches.  This was to achieve more interest and relationships between the objects.  I also found some more upholstery fabric that is a dark red patterned satin which I stuck to the mirror to get a patterned background. 

I moved these objects around to achieve an interesting composition and changed my viewpoint a number of times until I found one I was happy with.  I drew this in charcoal pencil, removing the highlights with an eraser.

I am much happier with this – both compositionally and tonally (light source / direction is the large window to the right). 

Inspired by Vuillard, I made the painting almost square with the main object (the vase) off-centre.  Overall the composition is broadly triangular down from the flowers, with a steeper angle on the right side.  The edge of the fabric on the left helps to lead the eye up through the laid-down stem and up towards the vase.

Generally the composition is mid-toned with contrasting areas of dark shadow under and around the piano, the sides and behind the vase and the top of the jug, effectively “framing” the objects.

Strong areas of contrast are the highlights on the vase, top of the jug and the positioning of light flowers against the dark background.

The dark red fabric (covering the mirror) is satin so multi-tonal with an interesting repetitive pattern.  The darker tones and colours of the vase are almost identical to the background so the edge of the vase can be “lost” on the left-hand side, merging into the background.

The addition of the jug gives interesting negative space (the spout and stopper are an unusual shape, along with the jug handle) and the curved shape contrasts well with the more upright vase.  Placing the jug next to the vase reflects the colour of the vase onto the top side of the jug.

The peaches are almost the same colour and virtually the same tone as the highlights on the vase, as well as repeating the roundness of the jug.  They also reflect off the vase

Adding another layer of fabric gives an additional direction (line curving towards the vase), plus the two swatches are slightly different tones (although the same fabric!).  Using a “straight-on” view (seated from across the room) gives an interesting bottom line and negative space under the piano allowing for darker areas, plus the shadow behind the fabric against the highlighted area gives a good contrast.

The blue and cream flowers add a cooler hue to the warmth of the rest of the painting (as seen in Anemones), although in this drawing (because I used cheap paper!) I could not erase enough to get the correct light tones of the flowers.  I may add a few creamy yellow roses from the garden to get more of a “blowsy” feel to the flowers (possibly also Lady’s Mantle which is a frothy lime green). 

Colour

My next step was to trial different colour mixes – as there is a lot of colour in this painting, I didn’t want to use too many “ready mixed” colours and aimed to use a fairly limited colour palette to achieve a harmonious balance.

My first test mix would be a grey.  Vuillard frequently used a light neutral gray base in order to achieve his colour relationships so I mixed ultramarine with burnt umber – this gives a very rich dark brown/grey, almost black, which I also felt would be a good dark to use for shadows, etc.  I lightened this with white to find a neutral gray.

The red shades came next – the background is a rich red, with the vase having red tones along with the wood of the piano and on the fabrics.  I found it difficult to mix shades of red when doing my still life of peppers – you can’t add black or white as the red goes brown and pink respectively.  I decided on two shades of red, crimson alizarin and cadmium red – the crimson is a blue-red and the cadmium an orange-red so I felt both of these could be mixed to cover the spectrum of hues I wished to use.  There is a very dark red on the background so I mixed this with some of the ultramarine/umber mix which gave a good dark burgundy without dulling the red too much.  I then tested various mixes of both reds with yellow, and then adding white to achieve more peachy hues.

I need blues and greens for the flowers so I mixed the ultramarine with a variety of white and reds to get a range of paler blues and lilacs.  An interesting colour mixed here was ultramarine & white, then blended with a mix of crimson/cad red and yellow which gave a matt terracotta brown which I felt would be a useful colour to mix with others for the wood of the piano.

For the greens I mixed both the purple with yellow, and then the ultramarine with yellow and both with white to achieve a range of greens for the foliage – I may need to add a hint of red to some of the greens to tone down when completing the painting.

The remaining colours I need are neutrals for the glazed jug – even though this is, in fact, a fairly flat pale cream, I wanted a range which could be blended/ stippled to give more colour variation so I tested the burnt umber on its own then lightened with white (plus a hint of the terracotta previously mixed to add more warmth).  If I use cream flowers, I can also add a hint of yellow or peach to this putty colour for the variations in hue.

So, I will be using just six colours in this painting:

Ultramarine

Burnt Umber

Crimson Alizarin

Cadmium Red

Cadmium Yellow

White

The other thing I did when testing these colour mixes was to paint using dry paint, without the addition of turps or linseed oil.  This was because Vuillard used dry paint to achieve a matt texture.  By using the paint thickly, you have to work with the brush more to push the paint into the surface of the paper/canvas. 

This gives the advantage that you can’t be too precious with line as the dry brush does not give a smooth, solid outline.  It also has the advantage of breaking the paint up, leaving a more textured surface and sometimes allowing the under-layer to show through.

The disadvantages will be that: (1) it is time-consuming as the paint does not flow as easily; (2) you use a lot more paint; and (3) it will take quite a long time to dry.

My next step will be to test some of the colour mixes together – particularly the background, vase, peaches and fabric. 

For the background, I am testing the reds over a neutral grey ground and also the white of the paper.  In my first tutor report, he said that the exercise in opaque over transparent was “much more expressive” and “The subject is somehow rendered more effectively this way round probably because you ‘found’ the trees rather than painting them directly. It is important to learn from this.”  So, I think it is important to test some areas of the painting to discover whether “finding” the pattern by using negative space in this way will be more successful than the painting the pattern itself.

Experiments

Here, I have set out how I plan to choose the best colour/ application methods – ideas in plain text, results in italic.

Fabric Background

For the fabric, I will experiment with painting the dark burgundy on first, and then picking out the lighter areas so the main pattern is, in effect, painted in reverse.  Hopefully this will have the effect of making the background more textured and varied.  I will also experiment with painting this with the mid-tone and lightest red first, and then adding the dark tones and highlights to see which works best.

I painted three test patches of colour over a grey ground and, when, they were dry, applied the other colours over the top.  The darkest red didn’t work very well – the colour was much too dark for the medium and lighter red to show up at all so discounted that one.

The mid-red background was too dull and flat – because I had painted the mid-tone, I then overpainted both the darkest and lightest reds.  This made the main colour area (the mid-tone) very flat and also the lightest red highlights didn’t show up against the darkest, and if I had left the darkest red to dry first, the lightest red would have been too sharp.

The lightest red test patch gave the best results.  First I added the darkest red with a flat brush for the oval background and then (using a small flat brush on its edge) painted in the chevron pattern, followed by the flower and leaf pattern (again with the edge of the brush) leaving the lightest red paint for the patterns.  I then painted in the mid-red paint, using loose brush strokes which gave a layered effect and more texture.  I painted this loosely and allowed areas to blend with the darkest paint to soften the overall pattern.

As the background is fabric with a satin finish, rather than wallpaper, I will also need to experiment with the effect of light shining onto it as I don’t want it to overpower the overall painting.  As with Vuillard’s Anemones, it may be a case of painting the background much looser, and slightly blurred, to give the effect of depth.

As above, I loosely brushed over some of the paint to soften the edges and blur the detail.  I also added flecks of yellow and the darkest red paint into the mid-red to give more depth and a slightly shiny finish.

As the pattern is repetitive, I will also try creating a stamp (something like a potato print or sponge print) or stencil to see how this works.  Another idea I had is fabric wrapped around a form (wire?) for the curved ovals.

Tried this with a potato but would need a really large one to make the pattern big enough!  Also quite difficult to cut a clean edge so will have to think about this further.

The other area I need to test with regard to the background is painting this last, which is counter-intuitive but, again, could result in a more expressive painting by picking out the flowers, etc (if you zoom Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings, you can see that he added his backgrounds after painting the flowers).

I had a mid-grey board prepared and so loosely painted in a flower and then painted round this with a mix of the light and mid-red.  This gives much more of a textured, multi-tonal effect than painting straight onto a ground.  I think this is because you have to move the brush around so much more to go round the shapes, and this multi-directional approach works well.  When painting around something, you also leave small gaps for the ground to show through which adds a further colour to the painting.  It is also easier to get a very delicate, thin line than when painting the object directly which should be useful when painting the stems and delicate flowers I want to use.

Vase

This is very multi-toned naturally so I need to test the colours as I think this will need to be layered to get the right effect – hopefully the dry paint I plan to use will help here so that the underlayers show through.  I also need to play with my brushes and directional brush strokes to see how these work to get the burnished effect.  It may also be necessary to paint the vase/some areas of the vase white first to achieve more colour luminance (needed here to get the bronzed effect).

I applied a number of colours loosely using a dry bristle brush – mid red, yellow, dark-red and burnt umber.  For the darkest areas I applied a neat ultramarine.  Then, using a fan brush, I applied quick strokes over the vase area with white, yellow, red, orange, and then yellow again.  For the highlights, I painted white, then yellow, then white again with the fan brush on its side to get a broken line which I then brushed down with the flat of the brush.  Finally, when this was dry, I applied a dilute, transparent yellow wash over half the vase to see how this would affect the overall colours.

I was pleased with how this turned out but there need to be a few modifications for the final piece – the burnt umber and ultramarine need to be applied first with the other colours over the top.  I found the ultramarine was blending with the yellow to give a green tinge which I did not want.  I also need a smaller fan brush to apply small areas of highlight.  The yellow glaze does work – although not a very noticeable colour change, it does brighten the overall tone of the vase and gives a further layer of colour depth, which is the effect I want to achieve.

Peaches

Because peaches are naturally fuzzy, they do not reflect light but seem to absorb it, so need to try out the colours to be used which range from quite a bright yellow through pinky-orange to a dark burgundy, which can appear almost purple.  Where the light hits the peach, the resulting highlight is slightly grey/ blue in tone so I will need to do an oil sketch to get this right – would it be better to allow the grey ground to show through, or paint grey highlights/wash over the top.

I completed two test sketches for these – one on a grey ground and one on the white of the paper (the colours in this photo are actually darker than in reality).  The first drawing had colour applied and then stippled with the top of a round brush, and the yellow highlight applied with a small flat brush and dry paint.  The second used the same colours applied more expressively with a small flat brush, which I think gives a better overall effect (would apply the highlight in the same way as the top sketch). 

Jug

For the jug, the brown is a very dark, cool brown so I think the mix of ultramarine/ burnt umber should be a good match.  I will try applying these using a broken colour technique which, hopefully, will mix optically to give more depth.  I also need to view the white jug in Vuillard’s Flowers in a Vase more closely to see how he has achieved the glossy effect without actually using the colour of the jug (sadly cannot zoom this on Bridgeman).  This jug actually has two distinct textures – the brown top is matt and the bottom cream is glazed so much more reflective and the highlights / creating the form will need to be much crisper on the bottom and looser on the top.

For the top of the jug, I first used a dry ultramarine with a bristle brush to scrub the paint into the surface.  I then applied burnt umber loosely over most of the area and then used ultramarine again for the very darkest areas.  Finally, I mixed a very pale blue-white and used this as the highlight colour (rubbed in with fingers) to show the semi-reflective surface.  I think the mix of the blue and brown works well here to give a very cool brown.

For the base, I used a pink (crimson & white) and peach (orange & white) to add some colour to the pale cream.  I think overpainted with a two tones of cream (umber & crimson & white) and used ultramarine and umber to create the form of the base and shadows and the finished the highlights with the same blue-white as used on the top.

I am pleased with the colours here but not the brushwork, so for the final painting, I will apply the pink, peaches and blue, leave these to dry and then add the cream layers on top with the highlights in thicker paint once dry.

Once this had (almost! see streaking) dried, I applied a very transparent yellow glaze, which gave more of an earthenware colour which I like and think would work well in the final painting.

Fabric

The fabric on the piano top is an upholstery fabric so quite textured, almost like a rug, the overall patterning is quite square (created by the weaving process).  When researching still life, Willem Kalf’s “Still Life with Drinking Horn” showed a textured rug so I will look at this closely to see how he achieved this finish, and also look at more expressive ways of depicting patterned fabric (eg impressionist).

Willem Kalf’s fabric is beautifully done – darkest tone first, then mid-toned squares of colour to achieve the woven effect, followed by dull white (light grey?) highlighted dots to achieve the depth.  This would be very time consuming and probably too crisp in comparison with the looser brushwork in the rest of the painting.  I then re-looked at Vuillard’s fabric and decided to go with loose, swirling brushstrokes for the pattern.  For the base colour of the fabric, I applied a peachy-orange and then used the darker tone of cream (used in the jug above) over the top to get depth of colour.  For the pattern, I will used the darker greens from the foliage and the reds from the background painting in swirling lines using a small round brush and then blurred out slightly (using either fingers or brush).

Flowers & foliage

Need to experiments to see whether paint mixed with white to achieve colour luminance or whether to paint flowers out in white and then apply layers of transparent paint to glaze.

Starting Assignment 2

The brief for this assignment is to demonstrate understanding of colour, tone, composition and the development of technique in our chosen medium.  We are asked to set up a still life in the corner of a room, or table, somewhere that gives a surrounding context.  Working on at least A3 size, we should choose the background colour and pay particular attention to the viewpoint, direction of the light source, highlights and shadows (tone), relationship between the objects and the background and the mood to be conveyed.

In the assignment 1 feedback, my tutor suggested that I look at certain artists, one of whom was Edouard Vuillard.  Although Vuillard is probably best known for his highly decorative and patterned interiors with flattened perspective, I researched some of his still life paintings which were mainly done after the turn of the century when he returned to a more conventional perspective, although still with a high degree of pattern.  As this assignment asks us to complete a still life within an interior to give a surrounding context, I felt his work was very relevant to this assignment.

In terms of the surrounding context, I began my initial sketches by setting up a simple still life on the corner of the small piano in my dining room.  I choose this corner because the walls are a dark red, and there is a large, decorative gilded mirror behind the piano.  The objects set up were a tall vase which is beautifully rich in colour – at first glance it appears a bronze colour, but when you look closely you can see reds, browns and golds in the glazing.  I added some white lilies to the vase, and set the vase on a remnant of upholstery fabric I had, again to give more detail and colour.  I placed one stem of the lilies onto the fabric, both to give a contrast and an additional direction to the composition.

I completed five sketches of this composition, from different angles and viewpoints:

Of these, I decided that number two showed the most promise, both compositionally and tonally so I did a more in-depth drawing of this composition. 

There are strong verticals from the piano, mirror and vase, diagonals from the mirror, piano top edge and fabric and opposing diagonals from the fabric and flower stem.  The vase is slightly off-centre and the ellipses reflect in the mirror with a matching curve on the piano support.

Tonally, there are darker shadows and areas behind the piano and the edge of the mirror frame, darker tones under the piano and on the vase to give form.  Most of the painting is mid-toned with lighter areas for the highlights, flowers and mirror frame.

The one thing I did feel was wrong with this was the composition was that the flowers were cropped off – I wanted to have the edge of the fabric and underside of the piano for contrast but this meant that the vase began in the centre of the composition vertically, not leaving enough space for the height of flowers needed to balance the length of the vase. 

I then decided to attempt this composition in pastels – firstly as a colour sketch and also to open out the composition slightly to include all the elements I wanted.

I also changed the flowers from a single species to a small bouquet, as I felt this would add more interest.  The flowers used here are alliums, small daisies, gypsophilia and chrysanthemums.

Certain areas of this work well – mainly in the bottom left corner where the piano dissolves into the shadows and the contrasts between the gilt frame, and vase and the vase reflection.  However, I really didn’t like the reflections in the mirror – this does reflect out through large bay windows onto the street and so is quite pale and introduces more colour and detail.  I decided that this distracted from the main composition of the still life.  I wasn’t sure how to proceed from this as I really liked the vase, the fabric and the flowers, and so decided to go back and do more research into Vuillard’s paintings to give me inspiration.

After reviewing Vuillard’s still life paintings once again, I choose two which particularly appealed to me and analysed each painting: 

Anemones (undated) 

• Very rich, strong colour
• Highly patterned
• Confusing composition – vase on cloth covered table, not clear what background fabrics are – sofa, rug?
• Combination of warm/cool colour.  Warm – red, burgundy, brown.  Cool – blue flowers, blue & green in background wall, pale blue flowers (forget-me-nots?) reflected in highlighted area in vase and stems above & background fabric
• Darker blue used in shadows under fabric area
• Almost square composition (slightly landscape)
• Very loose brushwork in fabrics – dabs and strokes of colour
• “Ephemeral” anemone placed at vase base – strong tonal contrast, draws eye to bottom of painting
• Shadows very loose and indistinct

Flowers in a Vase (1905)

• Cool colour relationships
• Warmer tones behind flowers and in shadow area
• Wallpaper pattern suggested by squiggles of black and very dark red paint
• Colour harmony – contrast red/green for background
• Same pinky-terracotta repeated on wall/wallpaper and tablecloth
• Strongest contrast almost black/white – negative space created by jug handle
• Printed pattern on vase loosely suggested
• Highlights on jug simple lines of white paint
• “white” jug actually painted in grey/blue/pink – very little white actually used
• Stone mantle blue/grey/green-grey plus hints of pink
• Slightly off-centre composition – diagonals of mantle and table match