Homework: June 26, 2010

As "homework" for my painting class, I needed to do some practice work with rounded objects. This was a vase that I found in a yard sale. Not too complex, but not too easy.

Well, there is a LOT to desire about the drawing, itself. The only thing that I can say about the drawing is that it looks like a vase. Outside of that... ick. The base is lopsided, the body is lopsided, etc.

However, the purpose of this exercise was to practice trying to get a rounded form. For that, I somewhat succeeded. I made sure that I used greys on the edges to have them fall back into the table/background. Also, I made sure that I linked my shadow areas and my light area with some reflections of the table added into the body of the vase. That seems to have semi-worked.

As noticeable, there's a lot of room for improvement, but this was a quick study.

Classroom: June 22, 2010

Last night's class was all about massing (as usual). The time limit was 20 minutes and here's my results of that time. The point of the fast time limit is so that you focus on the essentials and don't get bogged down with the details.

In my case, I finished everything but rounding out the belly of the jug. I had just laid down a large white area on my highlights and was planning to then feather around it, so that it rolls back, when the time expired.

Class Notes:

1) When working on your painting, there are some definite steps to go through:

A) Mass out the general light area

B) Mass out the general dark area

C) Define where the reflected lights are

D) Define the dark area and place the core shadows, lost/found edges, etc.

E) Define the light area and place the highlights, edges, etc.

2) Consider the position of the oncoming light. The area at the highlight is the brightest. The area at the top of the sphere is the second brightest. Add grey or a grayish-background color will help the sphere roll back. As you go down the sphere, it'll get darker and darker where the bottom of the sphere will contain the reflected color of the table.

3) Always model the sphere first based on principle in 2. Ignore the reflections. Once the modelling is done, add the reflections. Don't overdo the reflections or you will lose the form of there sphere.

4) Colors closer to you are more pure (just like landscapes). Dark objects are darker as they get close to you. Contrasts are also stronger.