Exam

The top picture is my finished exam piece. I did it in acrylic rather than oil paint because I need more practice with oil to be able to paint with confidence, however oil paints would have made the colours seem more vivid and realistic. I painted it on a black canvas which I realised afterwards wasn't really necessary as there is very little black on the picture and meant that everything needed lots of layers before I could paint in any detail. I'm pleased with the out come, especially the grapes, but regret not having enough time to go into more detail on the cloth. I think it looks plain and uninteresting compared to the rest of the picture but draws more attention to the fruit.

These pictures were all taken throughout the exam period to show my progress.

Exam

I needed practiced the painting style of my final piece before the exam so I tried it on a picture of an apple I had taken.

Exam

These are some examples of dutch still life by artists such as Floris van Dijck. I like the way that at first the still life looks perfect but when you study it closer it has rotten flowers and imperfections. I prefer the pictures that are based around fruit and other objects on tables, rather than flower arrangements, as they relate more to my painting.

Exam

After I had taken lots of photos of fruit from different perspectives and lit in the style of Dutch Still life, I tried to experiment with different styles of painting/drawing the fruit. I used ink to print onto card to get a blotted line effect, though this was difficult to get the print to stay in line as I could only do it in small chunks because the ink dried too quickly before getting to the card. I liked the outcome but it was hard to tell if it was a picture of grapes or just blobs so I then tried printing onto card painted white to make the lights and darks more obvious. I did a more detailed biro drawing of the grapes as well to add some skill work to my prep sheet.

I dribbled white paint onto plain grapes to make them look highlighted though it was hard to get the position right because of how thick the paint was.





I tried using cardboard instead of paintbrushes to paint apples but to look effective it needed lots of layers and didn't look decayed enough for me. So I used the same technique but on crumpled up paper which gave it more texture. I printed this onto tracing paper and liked the effect but they looked a bit plain, so I worked into them with white paint and then black ink to get a more detailed and decomposed effect.

Exam

I needed to develop my idea of rotting apples a bit more so I researched the dutch still life artists. They use dramatic lighting to create shadows, which is a lot like the the last painting I did of a figure in cloth. I also liked the high realism of the paintings. I then set up my own version of a dutch still life using various pieces of fruit and similar lighting. I photographed the fruit over about 3 weeks as it went wrinkly and dried out. The top photo is the final picture I used for my painting.

Exam

The exam title was 'Rhythms and Cycles' and because this theme is so wide I chose to focus on natural life cycles and decay. The first idea I came up with was to photograph an apple rotting and develop a painting out of that. So I took pictures of one apple of the period of about a week as it decomposed.