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