Still Life with Colour to Evoke Mood

For this exercise, we are asked to use colour in any way we wish to evoke a mood or atmosphere in our work, and also to explore the more expressive and subjective aspects of painting.

My original thought here was to do a very bright painting using hot, rich colours (reds, blues, purples, etc) as I really do like strong colour and contrasts and if done well (artists such as Martin Decent (as shown in the notes) and Peter Graham) really provoke a strong reaction.

I then remember some work I had viewed when researching contemporary still life earlier in this section – works by William Packer (Pale Grey and Blue), and Galley (Pale Vessels).  I was attracted to the simplicity of these works and the very light, neutral tones of greys, blues, off-whites and beiges used.  I think I liked these because I normally choose brighter colours and strong contrasts, and to me, these evoked calmness, simplicity and peace. 

While I was still deciding on my “mood” for this picture (basically warm or cool!) I received my assignment one report from my tutor.  He suggested that I needed to work more openly and boldly, not respecting the edges of objects too much or getting distracted with detail too early in a painting.

So, with all this in mind, I decided that using pale neutrals and attempting to be much less fussy about the forms of objects would be the way forward in an attempt to create a mood.

I roughly sketched in the composition using a pale blue/green paint.  The background was applied with a large round brush, scrubbing the paint into the canvas for a scumbled effect.  I then painted over this in long strokes in a slightly darker blue with the addition of pure white.  I deliberately didn’t paint any edges in here – for the table top I used a slightly brighter blue and white, again scumbled together. 

The first object painted was the cup – I started with the white highlight area to keep this the brightest and then used buff titanium mixed with a little raw umber and white to create form.  I continued to use the large round brush at arms length for this and tried not to be too careful around the edges.  I defined the cup by painting in the shadow with a mix of lightened Prussian Blue and tried to keep the shadow much more hazy and loose (as I felt the shadows in the previous version were too strong).

The jug was painted using the same Prussian Blue, lightened where necessary – some of the paint here was applied with my fingers and rubbed in to avoid harsh lines and edges, the shadow was similarly applied with a large brush and rubbed in with fingers.  To create a more muted effect, the darkest shadow almost merges with the jug itself, losing the hard edge here.  The bowl was painted in light blue, umber and white – again using fingers and light brush strokes to blend the colours

The oranges were created by mixing up a bright orange, and then toning down the colour with Buff and white as I didn’t want any harsh colour changes.  The shadows and form of the oranges were created using the blue of the jug and this reflected colour shown in the jug and glass. 

The shadows on the cloth were created from buff, brown and blue to tie in with all the other colours used – scrubbing them in to avoid harsh lines and finally blending with fingertips to diffuse the colour even more.

Assessing this piece, I feel it has achieved the stated aim – evoking mood.  It is calm and restful, which is what I wanted to achieve.  Using pale hues it not my natural style – I usually prefer much stronger, clearer colour and contrasts – but deliberately excluding these forced me to paint in a different way, much looser and more expressively.

The areas I feel worked particularly well are the cup (the tonal variation works well here), the bowl (the colours here include orange, white, buff, brown and blue – but all blend well) and the shadows (much more hazy and blended into the jug to avoid harsh lines).

Areas which could be improved upon are: the jug (the drafting is not brilliant here although I like the highlights applied with my fingers – the paint sits on top of the canvas to give a more textural effect); the cup (a bit too indistinct – I was trying to achieve the same level of looseness as the rest of the painting, but think this should have been sharper to achieve the effects of light on glass); and the table top (the angle on the right-hand side is way off – but I like the way it merges into the background).

After I had finished both paintings, I put them on the wall next to each other to compare.  Overall, I decided I preferred the colours in the “still life with complementary colours” because of the colours used.  However, after doing the “still life to evoke mood” piece, I think the complementary painting could have been improved by employing some of the techniques used in the mood painting, i.e. making the shadows less harsh, and losing some of the edges (such as between the table and the background).