I started working on Assignment 1 around two weeks ago, with thinking about what I would like to paint. From the options suggested, I chose the still life with fruit option, because I was interested in painting natural objects’ colours. I had already gained some practice with the topic from the drawing course, where I struggled profoundly with detailed naturalistic observation. I was looking forward to trying out a different approach to the theme.
Preparatory studies
On the next food shopping occasion I discovered a very ripe, deep red pomegranate and thought this would be a good object to start with. I did a colour pencil study of the pomegranate. Not thinking about the possible conflict with assessment regulations, I made this in my drawing sketchbook instead on a loose sheet or in the watercolour sketchbook. I’ll include it here and will ask to ignore it if I submit that sketchbook for assessment of the other course.
During the next days, I bought some more fruit and tried out various combinations and arrangements. I put a blue linen table cloth on the living room table and placed the fruit upon it. I tried out different arrangements and paid attention to how objects’ shapes overlap and that the negative spaces look interesting and balanced. I then then found a first composition with 2 pomegranates, 4 lemons, and a banana. I made a sketch of this arrangement in the sketchbook.
Course instructions suggested to make several sketches to try out different compositions, but I did not want to draw a composition I didn’t like and once I had found one which worked for me, I did not want to change it anymore just for the sake of doing more drawings, for fear I couldn’t repeat a successful placement… So I tried out the same arrangement from a different point of view and made another sketch in portrait format, using the right half of an A3 sheet. This composition looked quite interesting too, but I preferred the first one and made another drawing in A3, this time trying to be a bit more detailed and work more on the tonal values.
Then I took a break from coursework because I had urgent other commitments, and there was also the journey to Oslo to visit the Emil Nolde exposition. I took up work on the assignment today. In the meantime, one of the lemons was spoiled, and the banana too, so I continued with a slightly modified arrangement of 2 pomegranates, 2 bananas and three lemons, but in the same setting of blue cloth on a table.
I repeated the process of finding an arrangement I liked, then made a compositional sketch in the sketchbook with my intended view for the final watercolour painting, and also tried out a different viewpoint for another compositional sketch. The second perspective was interesting because I could include the diagonal edges of the table, and because the table cloth structure was diagonal instead of almost exactly vertical. But I decided against this view because I found the first view more convincing with respect to the objects’ positions.
I made another tonal study in pencil of this arrangement, on the remaining left half of the A3 sheet, but this time in landscape orientation. In this arrangement I included the sofa behind the table as a background, because I found that it added a feeling of space and context to the composition.
Preliminary watercolour experiments
I had been very impressed by Emil Nolde’s watercolours and had the idea of trying out the technique of broad colour areas with black lines to identify object contours. I also had some ideas which techniques I might use for particular details of my fruit arrangement. I decided to begin with a watercolour of the whole composition to try out the broad colour approach.
I lightly sketched the object contours first, then colourized the broad areas of the blue table cloth, and yellow and read for the fruits. I added colours for the shades and colour blendings while the paint was still wet in some areas, but waited for them to dry in others. I reworked the colours in several layers and tried not to overdo because I knew that colours get muddy very quickly. I wanted the colours to be broken with my mixing, but not too much!
After everything had dried, I added black lines for the contours and the texture of the table cloth. This completely changed the overall impression and style of the painting. It had been quite light before, with the shaded areas approximately bringing out object shapes. The black lines added something very massive to the painting. I let everything dry and added another layer of yellow, orange and red which intensified the colouring and reduced the contrast resulting from the black lines. I enjoyed the experiment and like the painting, but I think I will do without black lines for the final painting.
Comparing my experiment to Nolde’s watercolours painted in this technique, I think Nolde has used watercolours with higher concentration, because his colours are much more intensive than what I have produced. Also, he has probably used a larger brush. I had a round one size 10 and think it did not load enough paint for obtaining the effect I wanted. I think I should have mixed more colour in advance and worked in a much bolder approach, doing the colours in one single go, letting everything dry and then use a finer brush than size 10 for the lines. But nevertheless I found the experiment quite interesting. It was also helpful because I used watercolour in tubes, rather than pans, for the first time.
Experimenting with techniques
During the last drying pauses of the first experiment, I began an experimental sheet for the other ideas. Here I tried using masking fluid for the table cloth texture (bottom right) and compared this to a painting approach (bottom left). I think the masking fluid works quite well, but I’m not sure whether the overall impression is not too pronounced. After all it is only a minor detail and shouldn’t dominate the painting. I also tried out sandpaper to create highlights on yellow surfaces (top left) – this might be nice for the highlights on the lemons.
The other two are blending experiments. I have a deep colour contrast in my composition between the (cold) blue table cloth and the (warm) colours of the fruit – yellow, orange, red and a tone of green in the banana. I thought a yellow wash might bind the objects together, and this might have worked because the blue of the table cloth has a slight greenish touch. But the wash experiment (top right) showed me that I would need much blue to get the tone I want for the cloth, or I would have to use a much lighter yellow for the wash.
I compared this to a version where I used pure prussian blue for the background against the orange and red of the pomegranates, and I think I like this better (top middle).
Another wash experiment is in the left bottom area. Here I applied a blue wash (spared out the lemons) and added a layer of red to obtain the purple colour of the sofa background behind the table. I think this colour mix works quite well. I also tried to create a stripy texture using a household brush for the red blend, but this did not work at the first go. I dried the brush and tried again on white background. This is more similar to the actual texture, although the colours are much darker. I think I would have to use a very dry brush with black (or very dark) colour on completely dried colour to make this work. But again, I’m not sure whether this type of detail really adds to the beauty and interest of the final painting.
I’m planning to approach the final painting tomorrow. I’d prefer to paint with daylight, so will see if I can start not too late.
Final watercolour painting
The final painting was quite experimental… I began Sunday morning and finished late in the afternoon, taking quite a few pauses between stages where I let the painting dry. Looking at it two days later, I think that it is sort of unfinished, but I will leave it as it is, just to document how far I got.
For the technical aspects, I chose to make a very light yellow wash at first to create some commonality between subsequent colours and reduce the contrast between the blue table cloth and the warm fruit colours. I used graded red-brown washes for the brown sofa background, and a fan brush to create a bit of corduroy cloth structure. I employed the masking liquid for the squared texture of the table cloth and then reworked the blue area because the pattern was too dominant, by wetting and then dissolving the pigment with a sponge and lifting it off with paper tissue.
I thought about reworking the sofa background and the fruits themselves, but in the meantime, the cats had played wildly in the living room and the fruit had fallen off the table, destroying my arrangement. So I did not touch the painting anymore and the overall impression and style of sofa and fruit is different from that of the table cloth. I think the sofa background would benefit from more intense colouring, and the lemons might have needed some more yellow layers and reworking the shaded areas. But on the other hand, I like the unfinished character of the painting and therefore I will not touch it any further.
During one of the pauses when the painting dried, I made an oil pastel drawing of the arrangement from a different angle. This was actually the perspective I had taken earlier in an alternative compositional sketch. For this drawing, I used Sennelier Oil Pastels for the first time. These are much softer than the inexpensive study oil pastels I had used before. I also used special oil pastel paper with a sort of woven surface texture which takes up more pastel material before it is saturated than standard drawing or pastel paper.
I’m not sure whether this drawing belongs to the watercolour blog (due to its character as a colour study for the assignment) or to the drawing blog (because it’s a drawing with which I explore a new tool). I’ll include it here because I find the thematic link more important than the technical aspect, and maybe also because these soft oil pastels permitted working with colours in a more painterly way. I do not really see it as a drawing anymore, it’s almost a painting, only that it’s done with paint in stick form.
So overall, I’m quite glad with my first watercolour painting. I really like how the table cloth looks like. I also liked that it was possible to rework the background area on the relatively robust watercolour paper. It just makes me want to paint more, and curious try out all kinds of things to achieve a variety of effects with watercolours.
