Week 18

 I tried to set a theme of a teddy bears picnic for this still life so I could try and experiment with a narrative tone a bit more. This theme also gave me the chance to have more textures such as fur and pots .

Sketches 

For these sketches I gave them quick washes of tone to show the lighting more.

In sketch one I had the size of the object spiral downwards to the biscuit in a box which also created a nice L shape overall shape. I also included more smaller objects that could be scattered around to make the scene look more natural. This is the option I carried forward to my final piece.

In sketch two I played around with perspective a bit more with a thinner set up that layers on top of each other and although I do like this idea it did make the overall shape a bit dull. So I put this idea to the side.

I did a photoshoot of my still life with different lighting to test out which one I liked the best which I have put in black and white so the tones can be seen clearer.

Final piece

I decided to do my final piece in ink since I had the option to use a different medium in this task and I haven't used them in a while. I found inks easy to work with as they can be layered and this is good for building up texture which worked especially well in the fur of the teddy bear as the clumps of fur are shown using the brush strokes. One issue I did find was the paper I used isn't thick enough for the techniques I am used to for soaking off an ink blot so when I tried this lightly on the accidently ink spot in the centre it ate up the paper slightly. However I was restricted from preventing this issue as my thicker paper I normally use for ink painting I am unable to access . My favourite part of this piece is the pillow the bear is sitting on as I think the thickness and soft texture of the pillow came across well, the impression of material folding is present but I do think a bit more refinement may be beneficial. This is true for the drapery in the background as the section on the left has a good start at the shape of folds but a bit more contrast and use of harsher lines will give the folds a clearer structure overall. The drapery behind the teapot is my least favourite part of the entire piece since it was not blended well and didn't look as clean and developed as I would have wanted in the end, to resolve this i would pay more attention to the shape of the creases as these are what I was struggling to recreate since they are structured a but different to a fold. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of this task as I was able to further develop my skills with ink painting and I think I managed to show a good representation of texture within the scene.