Exercise 2 – Tonal Study on a Dark Ground

I prepared a piece of A3 acrylic paper using ultramarine and black together and then set this aside. I came up with the idea of using this shiny deer head against a brick backdrop for my choice in subject. I thought the reflective surface of the deer head against the matt bricks might make some interesting tones. I started off with the deer head mapping a slight outline in grey and then going over the darker areas, finishing off with white highlights as the reflective parts. The bricks were a red and brown wash as I wanted to keep some of the dark background showing through.

I quite like the use of a dark background for this piece, with it showing through the red bricks and Ochre wood making them slightly textured looking and matt looking. I also like how the subject colour when added to a dark background makes it pop more?
I think the tonal study on the light background probably turned out better than the dark back ground. I was quite pleased with how that turned out, with the tone working to create the form and a sense  of dimension to the items.