Project 1 Stage 3 Exercise 2

This lovely little vase (15cm tall x 5cm circumference) is something I see many times every day.  I chose it to draw because it is such a lovely texture.  It feels quite smooth but the matt glaze means light is not reflected so it appears dull. There are barely visible ridges going around the vase which make it look a bit stripey. Until I was looking at it closely for this exercise I didn't realise that its sides are a bit convex an irregular shape (probably because it is hand made). You can see this on the photo.  The benefits of looking closely!

Now I've set myself the task I find I don't know how to represent the vase.  Pastels are too obvious and I'd struggle to show the variation in the finish.

Using pastels

I tried pastels anyway.  I laid horizontal strokes, spread it with a course haired brush then fixed it.  When it was dry I scraped it with a sharp point and this made barely visible marks quite similar to the vase. Whilst the colour was good and it looked matt nothing else really worked to evoke a feeling - too effect was not smooth enough and too blotchy.

I decided to abandon the colour lovely as it is, and just go for texture. I lifted out marks with an eraser but I didn't like the initial outline.  I tried to fiddle until it was less prominent to to no avail.  It stopped the stripy look reaching the edges of the vase and this spoilt the effect.

 This time I only made horizontal lifts so any edges were defined only by them.  I think it works much better.  The rough, matt surface is really there.  On the vase the ochre stripe was laid on before the glaze and it bled a bit into the blue.  I used gouache to show this and outlined it in white.  The big learning point hear is that colour isn't everything.  Textures  can be created just with pencils.









My next item is a light catcher that hangs from a tree in my garden.  It has an ethereal quality that I thought might be a challenge.

My light catcher

 I wanted to capture the insubstantial quality of this light catcher.

I tried to capture the ethereal quality

I used tissue paper that I marked with spots of bleach.  Then I mounted some angel fibre onto fine glittery paper and that went onto some pale blue fabric. I used felt tips to make the darker marks in the glass and the surrounding lead is in gouache.  

First of all I tried to find papers that were about the same colour as the glass but when I introduced dark blue around the edge the quality I was looking for disappeared.   I decided to use a paler colour instead.







I'm quite pleased with this result.  I'm not tempted to try again in another medium as I have before.  I think the fact that I've deviated from the actual colour is significant.  It teaches me something about interpretation  to get a particular effect rather than just representation.