PAINTING- Still life

Still life [Objective painting]

To even begin, let's first ask ourselves: What is still life?

The life in still objects. Basically. The hidden narrative that one can come up with when interacting with an object. Everything has life in it. And as human beings, the importance of interaction with everything is the  beauty of life and that's why we are all here to discover. It's why I am here to explore, learn and share about my response when interacting with objects in the discipline of painting. 

Before even getting to the part of com positioning, one needs to understand the properties of a composition and what makes a good one. The elements of composition in art are:

• Unity: Asks yourself if parts of the composition feels like they belong or out of place.

• Balance: The sense that the painting feels right with consideration of proportions, symmetrical arrangements. A painting that is not balanced creates a sense of unease. 

• Movement: How you can capture something that is moving can be done such as such as the arrangement of objects, the position of figures, the flow of a river. You can use leading lines (a photography term applicable to painting) to direct the viewer's eye into and around the painting. Leading lines can be actual lines, such as the lines of a fence or railroad, or they can be implied lines, such as a row of trees or curve of stones or circles.

• Rhythm: In giving the sense of giving the work a certain rhythm that that leads your eye to view the artwork at a certain pace. Look for the large underlying shapes (squares, triangles, etc.) and repetition of colours. 

• Focus (or Emphasis): Focusing on the "important thing" or focal point or the eyes feel lost, wandering around the painting. 

• Contrast: Having strong differences between light and dark, for example - have a different feel than paintings with minimal contrast in light and dark, such as in Whistler Nocturne series. In addition to light and dark,  contrast can be differences in shape, color, size, texture, type of line, etc.  

• Pattern: A regular repetition of lines, shapes, colors, or values in a composition.

• Proportion: How things relate to each other in terms of size and scale; whether big or small, nearby or distant.

In response to these rules in creating a good composition, honestly, I had not always considered all of the above, tend to have the basic centralisation or focal point leaning to the right or left. It was refreshing learning about it again, remembering the importance of placement in a painting. And these rules are to help enhance the quality of a painting having the basic foundation of a composition. How I have always approached my subject before painting is to firstly pick out a portion of what is in front of me like a view finder and crop it in a way that interesting or appealing at a certain viewpoint. And that goes for observational painting as well, in representing what you see before you. Having to make decisions quickly comes with practice, knowing yourself and what exactly interests you even the smallest things. In this case, it is our every day to day still-life  objects. 

Of the thumbnail drawings I have sketched out, (Left) this is what I have chosen that is both aesthetically pleasing to me and calm because of the dynamic space with the visible plainness of the wall in the background. But also, still leaned towards the centralised position of objects knowing exactly what I want to focus on. 

(Top Right) Initially, despite knowing exactly how to be starting on a painting usually with the practice from left to right, depending on preference either from top to bottom or vice versa. Starting out was just as uncomfortable as it looks as I have never had an activity as such to share as close a space I had with the group I was in. It then felt like a huge task to tackle when looking at the subject as a whole. Instead of starting with one feature of the still life composition like I always do, I decided to start from a wider scale before zooming into it. The fact that I was in a position out of my comfort zone, I was then inclined to be spontaneous with the colour choices, not exactly portraying a realistic representation of the still life. It was an expressive, almost vigorous brush strokes to describe the leaves outside the window dancing in the breezy wind of October and the rough textured brick wall that I saw on the very top right corner outside the window. Truth to be told, at this point, in to the three hours of painting, I was growing slightly impatient with myself wanting to see a visual outcome in my head and quickly give it a base layer first.

I had unintentionally expanded my colour palette, using bolder colours that I did not thought of using. That's also considering the coolness of the interior of that room that has walls with a hint of pale blue violet with graduating dark tones. Not forgetting the necessary qualities of a balanced look,  colours were measured in considerable amount of cool and warm colours. In contrast to the coolness, I had chosen my focal point to balance out with the surrounding space.

 

I realised that it is better to have everything planned before painting but while doing so, I was still making decisions in eliminating other objects that I felt wasn't going to work with the composition of colours I have already worked with. Initially, there was a pink scarf on the right corner of the still life set up which I didn't add into because it could disrupt the main attention which is the lamp. Also, because of the fact that my background experience as a painter had begun from oil painting, I was reminded that I was using a similar technique which is using less oil and in this case, using less water. Acrylic does not have the same thickness and fluidness that oil paint has but it worked well even with a dip of water. Another aspect of my painting style is that I do spent much time on one part of a painting and on the lamp alone, probably had spent a good forty minutes. That isn't ideal as it would deflect me from considering how the colours would affect the other objects and the paining as a whole.

Towards the end, like every subject of painting I would take on, there was always slight hesitant in finishing it. Almost reluctant as I am enjoying the process of the progression of colours coming together. And previously before the last session of painting, I had done a smaller draft piece(right)at home in my own comfortable quiet space like I would always do before actually attempting the bigger scale. Not because of any uncertainty but to be more prepared in visualising the exact outcome in mind. Looking at these two finished works, it came to my realisation that the difference is evident when one has to try something new in different environments. My draft shows how controlled, patient and almost relaxed I was when painting this and as for the bigger scale(Top left), the painting done in class, was swiftly done with less calculations of the realistic representation and more spontaneity in colour choices. Trying something new doesn't necessarily mean it's not beneficial even if it doesn't turn out the way you expected it to be. From this self-evaluation, I now know how to be flexible, adjusting and accommodating to any kinds of situation under the intense discipline of painting. I think that's when real learning happens. When it comes to teaching the pupils, would firstly establish the colour family and how they can be used to achieve a certain effect. I will also break it down to steps and criteria which will help them focus on areas and not jump around the blank paper like I had done. It is good to have a clear idea of outcome of painting but it is always about the process that helps us learn.

In continuation:

I was happy to teach painting as interesting as it is for me, I had done an in-class demonstration was something I have never done before. It was a quick painting, capturing colours before working on tones. How I would begin at artwork is usually working from focus then outwards. However, that could affect the colour composition if one is focused too much on one particular area. In this case, I had encouraged pupils to input ideas of their own in how they would want to present their still life. I had shared that still life are objects that have been possessed by others, carrying sentiments and memories. The stillness in life that matters. I looked back at different ways artists have painted still life during my museum trips in London:

I have chosen these variations because despite my preference of realism, I do like the spontaneous way of painting that doesn't necessarily display the sharpness but can be quite interesting, almost impressionistic yet very recognisable.














In preparation for painting, there were a few things needed to be done before the actual painting:

• Colour theory knowledge
• colour chart
• crop image draft

 Doing the chart alone I felt took a really long time due to the accuracy to be achieved. It was a good practice as they are able to tell how one colour can be mixed by showing to them. Separating them in two sections I would suggest, warm | cool colours and opposite colours which is also known as complimentary colours.

At this point, I felt they were ready to try testing tones and colours which is why I had suggested pupils to crop a section of their still life in building their confidence, they shall start with a smaller draft. 

It was interesting to see the process of how pupils have approached this differently. They were separated in three different groups, coming up with their own still life composition that both have balance,  colour contrast and spatial dynamics. 

The second stage was establishing where the dark tones are as they are working with acrylic, I had suggested they could work from dark to light as it would be easier gradually to layer up the tones. From these examples of my pupils works, I felt the lesson was a successful one as they had felt more confident in terms of their knowledge when it comes to the colour family and opposite colours. Some were quite adventurous too to add something beyond the realistic set up of the objects.

 Thi pupil went beyond and reached out to her imagination, wanting to create her very own world. I always like that from a pupil and encourage further because in art, it is never wrong to do something different and being creative. In this case, all I had suggested was thinking about the different textural surfaces of the objects or else they would look the same. Also giving it tones to show depth and thinking about perspective, if the clouds are big, wouldn't that also mean it is quite close to the foreground? Nevertheless, pupils were motivated to find out what they could do with the colours which was just as exciting for me that it was really good to see pupils were not hesitant to try.