Part 2 Project 4 Ex 2

Still life using colour

This is an exercise in tone using colour.  I've not used pastels in any serious way before so I've decided to use them in this work just to see what they will do (or not do).  I've been making sloe gin recently so I grouped my things together and thought I would record it for posterity.  I made a sketch (with some of last years brew in evidence).

Making sloe gin (sketch)

There were one or two challenges in this sketch mainly to do with making the shape of the bottle look 3D.  I found the highlight did this.  The sugar bag whilst it has four corners was screwed up at the top.  I drew a rectangle then worked from there to get it right.  The small dish with the sugar in I decided to move at the last minute because it echoed the placement of the glass and the bottle too closely.

I worked on some grey pastel paper slightly bigger than A4.  My instructions told me to work quickly and I found there was a fine dividing line between speed and panic.  I was unsure what "fast" meant and what "overworked" was.  Once I got into it I forgot about the instructions and just went with it.  I used pastels on their side (sometimes scratchy) twisting them on the end (the sloes) and blending the colours with my very messy fingers.  When it came to shadows the black was too dense so I mellowed it with a series of other colours.  I found that I could cover up mistakes and put layer upon layer and it gave some depth to my work.  All in all I'm happy with this although there's always things I'd like to do better like the glass.

Making sloe gin - soft pastels

When I looked at this the next day I thought the composition was poor - there was little connection between the items.  So I tried again making more use of overlapping and I think it works much better.

Putting in blue at the bottom was a big mistake because the sloes lose a lot of their impact.  I tried to tone it down but it was difficult and started to get messy.  Because the items are closer together the shadows are less.   I found that I was blending with my fingers a lot too much and the work became very flat and uninteresting.  I was able to retrieve it by going over the top and creating some texture.

My tutor has encouraged me to experiment with cropping so I tried a couple with the last image.

I think this works quite well

....but this loses the point - the sloes are missing

I quite enjoyed my first attempt with pastels and I think it's something I will return to.