Still life with man-made objects

Here is a selection of photo I took trying to find the ideal arrangement to paint. I have chosen the fabric as I have been finding it a little bit boring to create a still life. This is inspired by Kate Brinkworth. I first took a lot of photos to see the different angles
In the first sketch is a focus on the actual objects and the way the background will be obscured and where the liquid sits. I also have drawn the reflective areas of the liquid. In the second sketch I boarderd it to be the same size of my canvas. I carefully created outlines of the objects and focused on the background/pattern lines. I wanted to match the lines from my original sketch to allow the glass to be a seperate image to the fabric.
Colour test – To create a burgundy i mixed my different red tones with violet which made a vivid collection of burgundies. Portrait pink and buff titanium was used for lightening the colours. White and warm grey worked well when creating the glass edges. This test went really well and I feel fairly confident that my piece will be quite interesting to look at.
  • During the painting
I started by creating an outline in a pale yellow of the two objects and carefully began drawing the stripes of the fabric avoiding the glass. I used a transparent burgundy tone to begin adding the colour of the stripes and did the first layer of paint for creating a strong, rich colour to match my physical objects. Then began to focus on the glass, outlines where first, the greys, whites and finally creams. I continued working in layers, adding different tones, followed by painting shadows and reflections. Working in layers has really helped me ensure I get each mark, detail, reflection and accurate light.
Final Image

I feel quite proud of this painting. I think when you step back and see the painting as a whole, the rich colourful pattern is interesting and gives a viewers a reason to investigate the image, see the closer details. Close up, I think you can see the details such as the reflective properties of the glass and distortive properties of viewing through liquid and glass.

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