[COMPLETED] Birgith’s 100 Day Challenge: Still life painting

[Birgith Schei]

Thanks, Paul. I have chosen  to focus on ellipses, because I find them challenging, and I want to manage them. Hopefully I will be really clever when these 100 days are passed 😊.
This is no. 8 day of my still life no. 2. I will leave it for some days and then study it again for probable corrections. In the mean time I will have to find some more still life objects.

[Birgith Schei]

Here are sketches of possible items for future still life paintings

[Josseline Jeria]

I like that you’ve chosen to have objects with varying surface textures. Some slight overlapping of objects can be good to suggest more depth in your image. Analyse your horizontal and vertical lines of where your objects are placed and the general directions. Analyse how the objects in space will direct the viewer’s eye. This is good to see if you like how the viewer will interact with your image.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Josseline Jeria.

[Birgith Schei]

Day no. 9 of my 100 days  Art challenge. Still life no. 3, which at this moment is just a sketch.

 

[Joshua Jacobo]

Go go go!

Some tips.

1. More perspective consideration. With still life paintings, how these objects sit on the table and how they relate to each other is very important.A little more drawing underneath will help you work this out.

2. Fewer tangents. In other words, more and clearer overlaps. When too many objects just touch each other is makes the space confusing.

3. Find a simpler value pattern for the whole piece. Rather than each object getting masses or value areas, try to find an overall pictorial pattern using shadow, light, local color. Anything you can. Ben Fenske’s lectures on this subject in his Landscape course are excellent. Maybe instead of 13 masses we could have 4 or 5.

[Birgith Schei]

Thanks, Joshua. I will take your comments into consideration in my continuing.

[Birgith Schei]

Thanks to Joshua for corrective recommendations to my last published sketch. Instead of correcting and continuing  this, I have decided to go for the attached and new one,  as a guide for my next acrylic still life painting.  I intend to use warm yellow/brownish together with  blue/wiolet and some brighter  tones. 

[Peihong Jiang]

ohhhh I like the colors!

Speaking of perspective and ellipse, some question:

From the onion, I assume that I’m looking down at the scene, but the cap of the bottle seem to have a longer minor axis than its bottom? Which makes it looking counterintuitive to me. But I’m not a master in perspective in any sense. 🙂 Welcome to correct me!

^source: internet

[Birgith Schei]

Thank you for your comments, Jiang. I will do some corrective measurements to be sure the ellipsis on the glass is correct. I look at the scene from above in a 40 -50 degree angel. The half onion is a little bit tilted towards me.

[Birgith Schei]

You were right about the glass ellipses, Jiang. I have made the bottom ellipsis rounder and the top a bit more narrow. Thanks for making me aware of that. 💐. However, this is just a sketch to give me an idea of the arrangement of the objects that I am going to paint. I will be more accurate regarding geometry and perspectives on my painting. I have started to follow a drawing course by Iliya Mirochnik here at NMA which has given me some good techniques to make  ellipses in perspective. I will use this technique during my painting.

[Birgith Schei]

This is the 11th day of my 100 day still life challenge. Just started painting the scene drawn yesterday.

[Josseline Jeria]

Good start Birgith 🙂

[André Girão Tauffer]

I love the shapes you chose for the second painting! It’s amazing how you reach for a nice symmetry for those round elliptical forms, I find it really hard to achieve!

[Birgith Schei]

Thank you so much, Andre.
Here is the 12 th day if my 100 day challenge. 

[Joshua Jacobo]

Nice work.

Something to try: Draw a box to enclose each item, even it’s an onion and nothing like a box. If the box sits convincingly in the table in perspective just having that container will help you give your objects more of a sense of correct spatial placement.

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