Title and Medium
Water melon and bottle. 30x40 cm. Oil on canvas.
Artist's Statement
I was so excited when I read the task for the August project that I could not sleep. I grasped a canvas and finished this work over last night sitting in the kitchen.
I never worked over the still life without support of reference photo before. Wow! I can do this! Thank you Marion.
I used French ultramarine, Alizarin, Cadmium red light, Permanent rose, Tio indigo for negative space and Cobalt green light, Sap green, Emerald green, Cadmium yellow light, Zink white, for fruit and bottle.
What I'd Do Differently
- I like the result.
- However I am doubtful about light label.
- May be it is worth to put a red stroke in the bottle throat to tie it to the red spill?
- I am doubtful about shades from the watermelon, as it was eaten before I finished it. (Alas my family had other plans in this respect. So I finished with the peels.)
Marion Boddy-Evans, Painting Guide, says:
I'm thrilled you tried painting from actual objects rather than photos a try and enjoyed it. (Even if the family couldn't resist eating the watermelon before you'd finished with it!) Looking at the objects rather than a photo means you're working from 3D not 2D. You can see the subtleties in the shadows that you just don't in the average photo. You can try out various arrangements of the objects, be in charge of the composition and the light.
I think the light label on the wine bottle demands too much attention, distracting the viewer's eye too quickly. I would darken the tone slightly, so it's darker than the lightest tones on the melon. That way the viewer's eye will be pulled in by the red of the melon, then out to the red on the bottle and its label.
Looking at the composition, watch out for kissing, that is elements in the painting that just touch one another. Here, the bottom of the bottle just about touching the line where the blue foreground and red background meet. It makes for a stronger composition to have things definitely overlapping or definitely separate. You could solve this by extending the red down a bit more (but not so far it eliminates all the blue in the triangle between the melon and bottle).
