5 OBJECTS STILL LIFE BLACK AND WHITE PAINTING

Ground: Gesso with gray paint
Support: Watercolor paper
Solvent: Turpenoild (sp?)
Palette: Black and White

After playing with the box painting, we started working on a "real" painting project which trains us the skills of drawing and painting objects with their relationship with the surrounding environment. In this project, we were given a limited palette of black, white and the variations of grey. It has been a while since I had my drawing class so it took me a little time to catch my breath and start sketching with my brush. At one point, I could hear my heart beats when I started blocking the paint in following the values. I guess it really has been a long time since I painted!!!

Blocking in the paint with values ranging from light to dark

With the help of my professor, I was able to get the a wide range of values for the objects. However, it was a challenge figuring out how to make the darkest object 3-D because it was so dark that I could not see its values with my eyes.

I finally got to the point that I was happy with the ranges of values for the objects. Now comes the surrounding areas for the object. I knew I wanted to make it a dark background to pop the lighter values and transform how I saw the light onto paper. I know that the background would have a range of values just like the objects but I was so into making it dark that I did not realize how dark it got! When I evaluated this version, I found that the shadows were not working right. The shadow of the darkest object did not lie down on the ground and there should not be a light source coming in front of the darkest object.

As you can see this version compared to the pervious one, now there is a light source hitting the dark background. Once I was able to understand how the light bounce, it was so much easier for me to fix the flat black shape. I also put more white onto the white ares on the 5 objects to see if that can create a stronger affect. I also revisited the shadow on the square object to make it more realistic.

This type of object study is probably one of my most favorite projects in any of my fine art class. I relate my skills from photography on how to see objects in its values instead of colors. Black and White give me the privilege of not being distracted by colors and brings out the simple beauty of the shapes. In this project, I learned how to do directional strokes which helps defining the light directions. I also learned how to use my brushes the right way without being afraid that I will destroy the bristles of the brush when I paint with pressure. Coming from painting water color, this project pushes me out of my comfort zone. I was forced to use thicker paint to reduce the chance of liquid cracks on the paper and use tubernoided rags as an eraser which water color will not be able to be as forgiving.