Overall Thoughts

So, as I mentioned in the B3A3 blog, I actually did that one first, and this one later, because I forgot to check the lesson website to see if there were any update (I keep doing that! I need to make it a habit to always check the website before I start a painting sesh). But oh well, I just waited a week and got to this one this weekend 😀

Also: This time I remembered to record in my notebook what color mixtures I use (just the colors, for now. Although proportion is also important, it’s hard to capture, especially when I’m adding colors the way cooks add spices–to taste). So I’m proud of myself for that. It will probably be helpful when I come back to review and reinforce learning in the future.

A few interesting things:

• The blue of the ball stripe actually turned out better than expected when I mixed schev blue with ultramarine. It had the right shade, I think, and chroma/intensity (I’m still getting used to art vocab, not sure if I used those words right). I was afraid I’d dull it too much, or not get the right hue, but I think I did?
• Now that I look at it, my banana yellow is probably a bit too intense. Maybe a bit more yellow-green and a bit more white?

TK YT Pub Assignment video

Total time spent:

• Unknown time planning (maybe half an hour) + 80 minutes sketching + 6 hrs and 15 min painting ~ 8+ hours total!

If I were to start this painting over right now, what would I do differently?

• Maybe next time I’ll try color matching to what I see inside my shadow box, just to see if it works better
• Didn’t notice the assignment instructions about picking subjects that are 2/3 in light, 1/3 in shadow. Not sure I actually followed that. Will be more careful next time.
• Be more careful when painting shades. I accidentally painted the stripe on the ball with my ES shade, so I wiped it down with a napkin. May have affected the blue that I painted on top, but ah well.

Day 0 – Planning

• Not sure how much time I took here, but a few days (or maybe a week or so) before I actually started working on this piece, I first selected the objects and set up the still life I was planning to paint
• I chose something simple to start with. A ball, for sure, and then a cylinder, because why not–I happened to have a salt shaker right there
• And then the thing felt unbalanced, so I chose a third object: a pair of bananans (okay, so that was actually two objects, but I count that as one because they’re the same color and type of thing)
• Actually, the first couple bananas I chose turned overripe because I set up the still life about a week before I actually painted it, so I used a second pair of bananas for the actual staging, photographing, drawing painting. (Which are also now overripe)

Day 1 – Sketching

• Friday night, 10/28, I took a couple hours to sketch out the piece, first, because even though I’m only supposed to take half an hour, I always take a little longer (ha!)
• I did it in two sessions: First, I eyeballed the image and sketched it out. Then I redrew just the line art and decided which boxes/lines/points/distances I was going to measure
• Then I measured the pieces using the Evolve method (dowel and ruler) and sketched it out on the canvas. I did multiply everything by a factor of 1.5 and had to shift a few lines (mostly the banana) that didn’t look quite right, but…
• Mostly no major snafus this time, what with using simple objects and me being more familiar with the process:)

Day 2 – Painting

• Saturday, 10/29 started around 5pm after a busy morning then an afternoon nap 🙂
• Ended up wrapping up around 2am (!! Whoops!) but I actually finished the painting around 11:15pm, and then stayed up later to use the leftover paint to work on my color chart, and then cleaning up. (Color takes a LOT more time than black and white. But I kind of like it. I listened to the Brandon Mull Spirit Animals audiobook series via my library overdrive, and it was like a meditation, kind of)

• A few things I redid/second-guessed myself on:
  • Leaving the background as black construction paper. I considered including green paper (see image below), but ended up deciding against it. I’ll ask the instructors about that.
  • Making the tabletop slightly lighter than the background even though both are technically the same color, mostly (same black construction paper)
  • Doing the ES/MS curved shadow on the right side of the image. At first I sketched it starting at the junction between salt shaker and banana, then I shifted it over, then I shifted it back because the color of the background was too close to the MS of the banana
  • Using ES on the first banana to contrast it with the MS on that same banana. It looks a bit odd, and I could have arguably used MS there, not sure…will ask about that!
  • Redid the blue of the salt can when the first version was too bright in chroma (I think that’s the correct term), so I muted it by mixing in some black.
  • Did the reverse with the orange of the ball which was too light, so I tried to make the orange more intense by redoing it with a coat of orange that had less white in it.
• I had to use my phone to take the picture and match colors to…I suppose I could have checked my still life box, but it was a bit of a hassle. Maybe I’ll try it next time.

Final Submission

This is the final painting I submitted for grading:

Based on this still life:

I submitted the assignment at around at 3:40pm on Sunday 10/30, and got a response at on Monday 11:56am on 10/31.

My Questions & Instructor Feedback

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Lesson Notes

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