Title and Medium
Title: My Wine and Orange. Medium: oil pastel, color Pentel pen, glitter ink on the acid free paper.
Artist's Statement
This is my first time to set up or arrange some real art piece in my room. Usually I use a picture by the magazine. It’s really not easy for me because, my room is so dim and not enough some space. The blocking of lights it’s not so comfortable and bottle I use is dark green so I cannot see the highlights and shadows.
What I'd Do Differently
- I wish that, more prepared and more focused to my art project...
Marion Boddy-Evans, Painting Guide, says:
I think you should be pleased with this. The composition is simple but striking, and there's a lovely visual dance between the elements and shapes. The strong line between the foreground and background echoes that of the tall neck of the bottle. The strong circular shape of the orange echoes the curves in its shadow and in the bottle.
If lack of space means you have to move still life objects out of the way when you've finished a painting session, set them up on a piece of paper and draw the outline of each on the paper. That way you can relatively easily set it up again the next chance you get to paint. Add a little arrow to the paper to indicate the top or wall side, because when faced with the piece of paper with various outlines on it the next day, they don't always seem as obvious as when you did it.
If you can't move a lamp to get stronger shadows, do you perhaps have a torch you could shine onto the objects from one side? Otherwise, work out the highlights and shadows according to where you know they should be. Light from X direction, shadows will fall to Y, and highlight will be at Z. If in doubt, take the bottle outside or somewhere else and have a long hard look. (You'll probably get some looks yourself...)
