Saturday, February 14, 2009

New Project in Pastel Class

This project is going to be about using glass in a still life based on the light and shadow concept.

The studio setup (which I'm actually working from)looks like the photo but the point of view in the studio is a bit higher...I can see inside the blue vase. The photo at this point just helps me with re-setting up my still life when I go next week. I also like to study the color a bit in Photoshop during the week.

My initial setup had several pieces of glass instead of the vase and onion and it was way too complicated to view as a light and structure design, so I chose the cobalt blue perfume bottle as the only piece of glass.

The cobalt blue glass perfume bottle has a light side and a shadow side, but Deb told me to structure the first layer with it as part of the dark value. I'm trusting her ;-)
This is the initial drawing with the light and shadow structure blocked in. The painting will be 12" x 16" on Wallis paper.

5 comments:

Carolina said...

The reference photo is very attractive, please show as as many steps as possible!

Kendra said...

Beautiful still life set up. I hope you don't mind, I'm going to use similar set up for my students when I teach my colored pencil class next week. Like the blues of the vases contrasted with the brown/orange onions.

Your piece will be wonderful.

Unknown said...

Hola Carolina! Como esta? (That's the extent of my Spanish without the dictionary :-)

So nice to see you. I will try to show as much as I can while I'm working on this. I appreciate your interest in my project.

Unknown said...

Hi Kendra! Thank you...it took me quite awhile to arrive at this, and I would be thrilled if you were able to glean something from this for your students.

What I really love about this pastel class I'm taking is it's more about composition and design than pastel techniques.

In fact we have an oil painter, a watercolorist along with three pastelists in the class. And I bring my colored pencil work in for critiques. Deb has never worked in colored pencil but has helped me immensely to think in abstract shapes instead of photo-realism...which is where I want to take my colored pencil work.

Kendra said...

Hi Cindy, I always feel that different mediums all influence each other. I enjoy working with oils and pastels too. I'm going to a week long pastel workshop in Tucson in 2 weeks. Can't wait. Instructor is Richard McKinley, have studied with him before.

Good luck with this composition!