Exercise 2.3: Mysterious Tea Party

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Working in Tone and Colour, according to the brief. Consider an arrangement of objects, and compose the scene. Consider placement of the objects.

I want to repeat my method from Exercise 2.1, as I really enjoyed both the process and the outcome.

In review of 2.1:

  • A very central composition: the mask is in the center column of the image.
  • Eye movement goes back and forth between mask and phone, but few other areas.
  • The eyes in the mask have great dimensionality.

For this piece:

  • I want more areas for the eye to explore.
  • I want to avoid a central composition
  • I want to make sure my focus points have a similar dimensionality.
  • Work big.

Influences:

  • I think it is obvious that I’m still thinking about Paula Rego here.

Preparation

Inventory of Objects

I wandered around and picked up things that caught my attention. I wanted hard edges, and curving objects. I wanted a variety of colour, and objects I hadn’t drawn yet.

Idea

After picking up the blue cat cutout, I somehow fell on the idea of a tea party. No idea how that relationship came about.

Constraints

I have very limited space to work with. So I have to set up my still life, and carefully record it. Then work from those recordings.

This is not ideal, as the camera alters perspective, and I don’t get to carefully examine the arrangement as I’m drawing. I’m stuck with the pictures I’ve taken.

I need to figure this out as I go forward.

An object inventory

Composing

My camera makes a sufficient view finder. So I arranged objects, moved them around, played with the light and took a bunch of photos as I developed the composition.

I liked the idea of the blue cat, and the small ceramic cat, having a tea party. I began arranging objects to explore that idea. The first pass gave me an okay arrangement between big and small cat, but the rest needed to be changed.



Grabbing a few more items, and shifting angle. Putting a black backdrop down to flatten the image. The onion skin reminds me of fire. I like the negative space of the black background around the blue cat. I like how the cloth loses its texture in the foreground, and creates more negative space.

Adjusting arrangement, and moving to a vertical composition. As if we’re peeking over the table edge to look at the tea party. I like the angle, but it created a bunch of dead space in the image, and pushed all the objects into the center line.

Getting close again. Keeping the position of the fish from last image, but adjusting the small cat and the amethyst piece. I feel like I’m getting somewhere. The negative space is pleasing again.

Leaning in on the surreal. I added the green mask to the background, as an onlooker. I removed the amethyst, and put in a tiny oil lamp instead. I feel like I’m getting somewhere now. the mask adds to the flow of the black negative space, by cutting it down a bit more. It now feels almost like an arrow pointing down at the fish.

Shifting positioning, trying to move things out of center lines, I end up just reinforcing that center line.

Taking the last photo into my photo editor to crop out the parts I don’t like. This feels right. This is what I’ll draw.


What do I like about this:

  • The texture of the blue cat. This feels like layering pastels, and letting the paper texture come through.
  • The bright highlights on the fish, small cat and glass.
  • The eye-line of the blue cat is on the small cat.
  • the mask has walleyes, but feels like it too is watching the small cat.
  • The black negative space leads the eye to teh fish.
  • the small cat is looking at the fish.
  • the vertical glass lamp draws the eye down to teh small cat, or up to the black space which then goes back to the fish.
  • The angle of the mask’s hair reinforces the movement of the negative space.

What do I worry about:

  • This is challenging.
  • Making sure I keep the mask out of focus, so it doesn’t pull too much focus. I can do this with smudged lines, lower intensity of colour, and neutral colours.

An Unexpected Visitor

When I was blocking in colours, I found a third cat hiding in the black neutral space. Unintentional, but very amusing. It is sneaking in to steal the fish.

I found myself doing some outlining here with the black mass. I need to avoid doing that.

Pause and Review


I can say I’m enjoying the process. It is quite messy. Very messy.

I took my tutor’s advice, and have separated the page of paper from the pad, and work with it taped to a masonite board. This lets me turn it upside down, and work in different directions. It also lets me take it outside when i want to use fixative on some aspect of the drawing.

Looking at the image here, I’m liking how the masks’ hair blends into the background brown/black, though I dislike how prominent the green of the mask is. They eye pulls too much focus.

I’m not sure how to render the blue cat better. It’s layered and spattered paint is difficult, though I think I’m doing an okay job here. Okay.

The stitches of the fabric are fun. I like that effect.

More work needs to be done to the small cat to unflatten it

I have no idea how to draw the onion skin. It will suffice for now.

Stopping

I want to continue working on this. I am really enjoying learning how the soft pastels work, and how to layer them. But I have long since passed “work quickly”

Mysterious Teaparty, soft Pastel on paper.

What I like:

  • The stitches on the cloth. Layering these with different tones of yellow really helped to move that plane forward into the foreground. Adding the stitch line at its edge, at the background, really helps define the form.
  • The cup upon which the fish sits. I didn’t try blending it. Instead, I used multiple different pastels to build up colour and form. I like how it looks.
  • The inadvertent third cat, in the form of the black background. Its stealing the fish out from under the nose of the blue cat.

What I don’t like

  • The mask is too prominent. I tried neutralizing it a bit, and making its lines fuzzier. But I had gone too far already. Next time.
  • I don’t like how I failed to define the small cat’s weight upon the cloth. No shadow. Same with the lamp. Though this does add to the unreality of the image.
  • The black background is still too busy with marks. I want it flat and black, but I’m stopping here.

What I’m unsure about:

  • Did I do what I was supposed to? I’m not sure. But I definitely got into this and the process was very enjoyable.