From Ink & Watercolor class last week: an insulator from my dad’s collection, a pretty rock, a snail, an old bottle of stamping ink, a small piece of jewelry, and two shells.
I’m very happy with how this one turned out. My studying of color in the days before class helped me be able to better mix colors to match what I was going for which was so rewarding! I still had to ask for helpful reminders about how to mix brown and black though. I don’t have those memorized yet (although by now I can remember brown. I still can’t remember black).
I spent the most time on the snail, because obviously it’s the most important part to me. It was my second go-round with a sparkly rock and it went much better this time. It was my first time with translucent glass and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out except that I accidentally painted over my highlights in my insulator. Good grief! But that pitfall paint over all my highlights in my ink bottle so I’m super pumped with how that turned out!
I spent a lot of time trying to really see the lid on the bottle and it turned out much better than past attempts at similar items. While the pink shell isn’t even discernible (it’s on its side, you’re looking into it’s hole), the yellow one turned out better than I expected upon first contouring it, so that was a pleasant surprise.
I still need to work on color-mixing (the snail’s body turned out darker and more yellow than I wanted) and tone, but it’s encouraging that each week I can see measurable improvement!
There's only one class left. I will miss this class when it’s over, but these still-life exercises have been so helpful that I suspect I’ll keep doing them at home. It will be a great way for me to continue working on seeing contour, tone, and color - which are all areas that I need a lot more practice in!
