I decided on working with a still life and was very influenced by the work of Elizabeth Barnett because my brother and I are very interested in herbology and nature. I enjoy picking wild flowers and pressing and preserving plants.
I decided to put a cutting of milk thistle and some lavender into a glass bottle I found while gardening. I chose milk thistle because while most people see it as a weed it is a herb that is very good for you and I personally find milk thistle flowers to be quite beautiful. I also chose lavender because it is one of my favorite flowers.
At first I had the lavender and milk thistle in two separate jars but decided to put a few lavender stalks into the jar with the milk thistle because it was more simplistic and not too busy.
I started off by sketching different angles in my sketch book to get a feel for the composition.
I knew I wanted loose flowing lines in my drawing but felt I needed to work on my colour so I switched to thicker paper.
With my first colour test I made the milk thistle with oil pastel and did the back ground with watercolour. I had hoped that the rich colour of the oil pastels would bring the milk thistle forward and that the watercolours would look more washed out. In addition I had hoped that using oil pastel would make painting the background easier since I could wash over the oil without ruining it.
In the end I didn’t really like the effect so I went on to the second colour test and used only watercolour. The first colour test had also been on A5 paper and i felt that the scale was too small to practice on so I used an A4 paper for the second colour test.
I was happy with the details I was able to make with the flowers but not with that of the leaves. I also struggled with the bottle. Although I was happy with the angle and so decided to use that in my final.
I also used the second colour test to see how I should go about with my ink mark making. I liked the idea of the marks coming from the black frame and used them to draw the viewers eyes across the piece. I found that I shouldn’t draw over any of the plants or main objects since it makes the composition flat loses the focal point.
One large challenge for me was the veins on the leaves. I also felt that I did not have a very strong light source and that made the general tone rather ambiguous.
One mistake I made in the final piece was making the cloth that the flowers sat one very dull and grey; it should have been a warmer colour like in my second colour test. I’m very happy with how mush detail I was able to capture in the milk thistle; although I feel that my lavender stems are rather uncertain and not very solid.
I struggled a bit when it came to grounding the jar since there was not clear shadow but tried to add a subtle one.
Reflection on feedback from tutor
I definitely need to work on my use of colour. I’ll be practicing using colour and creating the correct tones so that my artwork does not look flat. I will also be experimenting with different media, especially oil pastel.
I need to work on my depiction of man made objects and perspective. I also need to focus my composition, often my background does not suit my main object or is too distracting. I think I should rather have simple backgrounds and focus on putting a lot of detail in my focal points.
I also need to remember to add more self reflection in my posts.