Part 2 Project 4 Still life Exercise 4 Monochrome

Reading the exercise description made me think of researching the Golden Ratios used by artists throughout the ages. Using guidance from the webpages Golden Ratio in Art Composition and Design (Meisner, 2014) and Life & Style tutorial: Creating art using the golden ratio (Marras, n.d.), I set out to draw boxes using the golden ratio proportions. I decided not to have the height of the page according to the golden ratio, but rather to have the strip dividing the background to mark where the correct height would be. I chose to have the pith of the cut open green pepper at the apex of the golden proportion twist of boxes. I tweaked the positioning of the designs on the plate and the details of the pepper to fit within the golden proportion lines. I had a lot of fun working with the placement of the pepper within the picture plane.



Placement of green pepper using the golden ratio

Once I had sketched in my preliminary pencil sketch, I decided to used two thin markers taped together to give my initial outlines and shading. When I drew the guava a few exercises back, I found that the loose lines created using two markers was really freeing and provided an interesting haptic sketch to work into, so I decided to see if I could create an artwork using two markers as the initial basis.

 

Detail of pith and plate

I then used a darker green to help to tighten up the contours and to add the darkest areas of shade. After this, it was a case of using chalk pastels, thin markers, and watercolor pencils to work the tones and tints of the form of the green pepper. I used Bombay inks to paint in the dark green strip which delineates the end of the golden section edge and the area around the pottery plate. I had to go back and work the split in the pepper quite a bit, exaggerating the shading slightly to ensure that the shading of the piece at the back started out in a darker tone than the edge.

I played with ideas of how I was going to approach the designs on the plate in my sketchbook. I eventually decided that I needed to wash the entire plate with a light wash of dusky green and then to work the details in with water-soluble crayons, water-soluble thin markers, and washes of ink. I didn’t want these details to detract from the pepper, so I tried to make them loose and less defined than the details on the pepper. I struggled with the plate perspective once again. Ellipses seem to be very hard to get in perspective. In the end, I had to adjust the curve on the right-hand side to try to create a more authentic looking curve.

Sketchbook experimentation

Once I was finished, I went back, added another layer from the chalk pastels, and touched up the darker areas with some more of the dark green details. This seemed to improve the contrast and sense of three-dimensional form. This is the first time I have painted a totally monochromatic piece. I probably played it safe by painting green peppers green. Painting the peppers in an unexpected color, such as purple would have probably been a bit more daring. That is something to consider for next time. 


Final monochromatic work

Works Cited

Marras, R., n.d. Life & Style tutorial: Creating art using the golden ratio. [Online]
Available at: http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/creative-lifestyle/creating-art-using-golden-ratio/
[Accessed 16 October 2015].

Meisner, G., 2014. Golden Ratio in Art Composition and Design. [Online]
Available at: http://www.goldennumber.net/art-composition-design/
[Accessed 16 October 2015].