Assignment 2 - Final Painting

I applied my mid-grey ground, left this to dry and then sketched out my composition.  I whited-out the vase, as I wanted to use transparent colour on this area as per my experiments.

I decided to start at the bottom of the painting, completing the piano and the fabric first, as I knew the white would take a few days to dry.  I painted over an orange hue first, to create warmth, then overlayed with beige.  On top of this I painted the fabric design while still wet to allow the colours to blend and merge with the underneath colours.  I also added the base red for the background and began the underlayers for the jug.

I decided at this point that the jug was too large and out of proportion so greyed out the top half (bottom was ok) so I could repaint. 

After the fabric and background was dry, I finished the jug, added the flower stem and applied the background ultramarine, crimson and burnt umber to the vase to achieve the shadow areas (and also to stop the blue mixing with yellow to give a greenish tinge).

Close up of finished vase (layered as per my experiment and then white dragged over the top for highlight areas and reflections).  The flowers and leaves were applied with single brush strokes.  I didn’t worry too much at this stage about the thickness of the stems as I knew I still had the background to paint.

Almost finished here – background detail added very loosely and quickly with short brushstrokes to allow pattern detail to blend and blur slightly.  I added a grid in pencil before panting to give me a framework to try to keep the pattern fairly even.

After I had painted the background and added the shadow detail (crimson and ultramarine), I decided the fabric was too pale and needed to darken slightly to achieve the tonal balance I had in my original drawing so added a glaze of very dilute burnt umber to the fabric to darken it slightly without losing the pattern detail and colour.

 Review and Analysis of this piece

For this piece, I was trying to achieve a classical still life that was rich in tone and subject matter while paying attention to my tutor’s comments from Assignment 1 (observing very closely, more confident/loose brushstrokes, not blending too much and paying careful attention to shadows).  I also wanted to create a still life which had more of a background than my previous studies, and to include flowers as I had not done this previously.  As stated in my previous notes, my tutor suggested looking at different artists, one of whom was Vuilllard, and I was drawn to the richness and loose brushmarks in his work from just after the turn of the 20^th century. 

I felt that the objects chosen would reflect these aims – different textures, reflective qualities and rich colours.  I looked at Vuillard’s compositional techniques (using an almost square canvas and creating depth by varying the clarity of objects portrayed) as well as the colours used (the rich dark red offset by the blue, warm/cool colour contrasts and using neutral shades as a foil for the richer colours). 

I really enjoyed painting this piece and did not have any major problems when painting it.  As stated above, I had to repaint the jug – I was quite surprised I hadn’t noticed the scale being out earlier in the process, but I think it was only when other objects were being painted in that it became more prominent.  I also think that, because I had spent quite a lot of time thinking about the colours to be used, and the techniques on various areas, I was well prepared when it came to finally painting it all together. 

Doing my experiments in this way, rather than just doing a straightforward colour study, has helped me a lot.  I find I often become stale if doing the same piece too many times when experimenting, so that when it comes to the final piece, I have almost lost interest.  Doing the separate areas piece-meal and then grouping them all together on the wall in my studio confirmed to me that I was happy with my choices and that the colour scheme would work when combined.

I think working with the paint neat (undiluted with either turpentine or linseed oil) helped me in terms of the mark-making.  When paint is more dilute, it flows better so you tend to blend the colours more.  Using the paint in this way – fairly dry on the brush – meant that many of the strokes I produced were broken and textured, and this stopped me “fiddling” so much.

The area I think works best in the painting is the jug – I had originally loosely painted on my chosen colours before repainting the top section – so when I came back to repaint it, I decided I could achieve the finish I wanted simply by adding a few strokes of dark paint and the white highlights to achieve the form. 

I am also pleased with the vibrancy of the vase – the mix of colours really works to achieve a strong colour without it overpowering the rest of the painting.  I decided in the end not to apply a yellow colour glaze over the top as I felt the balance of colour in the painting worked well and didn’t need changing.

The only area I think could have worked better is the fabric – I am happy with the colour and the pattern detail but I feel the fold area is not totally convincing.  Need to practice drawing and painting fabric more!

The only problem I encountered was with regard to the size of the studies  I did originally.  I didn’t really think through the fact that the studies I completed were larger in scale to that on the painting, so I had to rethink slightly when it came to the actual painting, so this is something to bear in mind for future work.