The task was to set up a still life, using a large shallow bowl partly filled with water,  and place one or two objects into the water, then draw and/or paint the arrangement.

I chose a blue ceramics bowl and placed a coffee mug inside. At the beginning, this felt like a very weird idea and I struggled with the perceived ridiculousness of the arrangement. But once I began drawing, I got really captured and actually enjoyed working on it.

I made a tonal pencil study first, then a watercolour painting of the same view in artificial light, and on the next day in watercolour a different view of the bowl in (diminishing) afternoon daylight.

The drawing was made with watercolours in mind – I tried to identify main shapes and capture the overall tonal distribution. While I was quite satisfied with the drawing, I felt like a beginner with the watercolour painting – again those irregular and stripy washes and I didn’t manage to get tonal values right, all the fiddly details and the result was overworked. For the composition, I found the bowl too small on the paper.

I tried to improve on these aspects in the second watercolour. The washes are still stripy but I think I applied a better technique so hopefully with time the washes will improve.

The main challenge of this exercise was that with every tiny movement, the appearance of the reflections on the water surface changed and I found it extremely hard to maintain the exact position while painting. I also had some trouble getting the proportions right. The drawing is quite correct I think, but the watercolours not so.

All in all, I really liked this exercise. It is not the way I really like to paint in watercolours, because I prefer a looser approach. But I think the detail studies and even overworking helps to get the practice necessary to loosen up later. At least that’s what I hope.