Still Life at Leith

This is a collection of still life drawings done at Leith School of Art.

First was a collection of drawings done with pastel on coloured paper, A3 size. The still life was in two rooms, the first was in daylight and a collection of many objects, randomly arranged. I found it difficult to get the composition to work as there was just so much stuff to choose from and too many colours. Working out how to mix the colours with the most appalling quality pastels of rough grey paper was a challenge.

The next drawing was done in the main studio which has rather no daylight and rather an inefficient lighting system. There was a long table with an array of fruit, candles and material spread randomly.

The lack of light was difficult and getting used to such a lot of objects and again, having to choose from so much, I found difficult.

I chose to sketch the candlestick with fruit to learn how to draw flames, which were so bright compared with the rest of the objects. The task was to show the extreme contrast which was pushed more and more in order to make it work.

The fruit on checked material was a challenge in composition and also because there was virtually no light on what I was doing. Everytime I went outside to spray the drawing with hairspray, I was shocked to see how bright my colours were.

This was a day of drawing and painting still life to convey the jumble and chaotic nature of objects.

First were quick, small paintings in acrylic to show the relationship in colour of how to get the composition to work. This was done using a big brush and to see how colours work next to each other. 

The next task was to draw with a stick and ink on A2 paper. We were allowed diluted ink and a big brush to add tone and then white paint to use in order to rub out the marks.
This proved quite tricky as, first, the stick was incredibly difficult to get a mark where I wanted it, and second, I did not understand how to use the white paint.
The idea of using white was to think of it as a rubber and use it to cover any marks that were not wanted and then draw over it.




The next brief was to cover A2 white paper with random colours. ( acrylic paint.) Then we had to draw the objects with pastel over the pre-prepared paper thinking of the marks and the colours showing through as part of the composition.

The following week was a still life painting with acrylics, to take two seeks over it and start by painting with a big brush, showing the chaos of the objects, balancing the colours and to be prepared to paint over whatever had been done. This is an important idea at Leith. Being able to keep working at something, rebuild constantly.
"Kill the beloved" is a phrase often used. Don't give up and start again. Keep repainting, redrawing and persevere.
First I covered the paper with random colours so as to not start with a white surface. I was very near the objects and, as they were on the floor, I was looking down on everything. Again there was the problem of how to choose as there was so much. Working out the composition is always the most difficult for me.
The elipses are not accurate but I was concentrating on how to get the lamp to work in the whole picture and what to focus on. The blue of the middle bottle was the brightest thing I could see and the yellow of the lamp was a challenge to balance in terms of composition. I made the peach material more yellow to join it together and to get the shine on the blue bottle I used cerulean blue with a little white, then put a more purple blue next to it in order to make it shine more.

The blue paint next to the lamp was the idea of Jane Courosopolis ( tutor ) to see what would happen just by putting a different colour there to balance the whole thing.

This seemed to hit a note with me and I intend to more of this. I really like the freedom of using colour in order to emphasis another colour.