I went with using bright pieces of fruit and some dark cherries set against a light marble effect chopping board for contrast. I tried out a viewpoint from above and a viewpoint from the side in my sketchbook using an ink pen, deciding that the one from above worked best. I then went on to do an oil pastel version of the one from above but a slightly more zoomed in version. I think I got a good idea of tonal values from this quick study and an idea of where to highlight and shade to reflect where the light source is coming from.

I then went on to do my final study using acrylic paint on mixed media paper taking careful consideration to analyse the colours of the shaded and highlighted areas. I found that with the highlighted areas I first blended white with the colour of the fruit and then went back over and dabbed white in the most lightest areas. The parts in which the fruit/background were hidden by the light source, were mixed with darker colours like grey, brown and black for the cherries. The apricot proved to be quite hard as it did’nt have a reflective surface and so there were no light spots to add, I just had to make a lighter shade towards the front. I’m not entirely sure whether this makes it appear slightly flat? With the marble chopping board I mixed a blue, green and white paint background and then added more white where the light source was coming from. I then dabbed and mixed a darker shade for the marble effects, going back over it again with a paint brush to create a stronger line of colour.

Overall I am pretty happy with how this turned out, with the bold contrast of colours and the strong concentration on tone, I believe it has helped to create quite an effective and realistic painting. I think that with still life painting you have to know your limits and capabilities. I don’t think the still life with flowers was particularly good, it was quite hard to do, and that could be down to choosing such an elaborate floral display. I also think that concentrating on tone rather than detail can create simple but successful paintings.

The first sketch was done vertically from the second farthest distance and slightly to the left. I did this standing up and tried to keep in mind the angle of the table. The second sketch was done slightly more close up and again I was standing up to sketch. I have drawn in a square frame and this time I was drawing in front of the objects.
My third drawing is done horizontally and I was sitting down in front of the flowers. I thought that perhaps all of these drawings incorporated too much of the background and table which were not particularly interesting, so for the fourth drawing I have drawn the flowers from a close up viewpoint. I decided to use this drawing for my painting and have tested out a few of the colour mixes I would need. The flowers were mixes of Magenta, Violet and White, the desk was mixes of White, Yellow Ochre, Brown and dark Blue added for the shaded parts. For the wall I used mixes of White, Dark Blue, Brown and Dark Green and the for the curtains I used White with mixes of Dark Blue and Brown.

I then moved on to the A3 mixed media paper using acrylics and working on a portrait format. The light source was coming from a window to the left of the flowers so I have tried to highlight this with lighter tones of the colour mixes I have made. The flowers were placed in quite a dark corner of a room slightly behind the curtain and so I have kept the flowers towards the back a more Violet mix. The curtains had folds and so for this I have mixed a shade of grey using White, Dark Blue and a small amount of Dark Brown. The glass vase was quite hard to do as I wasn’t entirely sure how I could paint the murky water and translucent glass vase. In the end I mixed Green with White and Brown for the water and then went over this with white to show the highlighted corners of the vase. Overall I am happy with most of the mixes of colours and the composition but perhaps I need to study the leaves and flowers more closely to get more detail?

I began this exercise by trying to choose items that looked interesting and came across some kitchen jars that were 3 different shapes. They were placed on a busy worktop so I ended up moving them for a more calm background and even surface. I tried to incorporate the linear qualities of the tiles and the work surface which I hope has helped to create perspective to the items. I began with the charcoal drawing and used a view that was slightly on top of the items, this proved to be slightly hard as I had to consider foreshortening the jars. I then went on to the blue biro drawing and the viewpoint from the left, and although I quite liked that drawing I decided to use the viewpoint from the right, using acrylics on mixed media A3 paper.

I used an analogous colour scheme mixed with some white to create the highlights and reflections, but I also applied further layers of paint to create the shaded areas. I tried to keep in mind that the jars were translucent so I needed to incorporate what the objects had behind them and where they were placed. The light from the window came from the right hand-side so I have used white paint to add these light reflections. I have painted the lines of the tiles and the work surface so they meet in a vanishing point to the left.  I’m reasonably happy with the outcome but I think I need to use a smaller round brush next time as the third jars lid was quite hard to do with the flat brush I was using?

With this exercise I first of all laid out all of my tubes of paint and then matched them to Chevreul’s colour wheel as best I could. I had to mix Cadmium Red with Brown and Violet to make the Maroon colour segment. I noticed that one half of the wheels colours are cool and the other half are warm colours.

I started on the Complementary colours or Opposite colours first, noticing that when placed next to each other they seemed to make a strong contrast to each other. I also noticed that when the complementary colours were mixed with each other they almost cancelled each other out? They became muted almost earthy tones of colour?
Edgar Degas used these complementary colour contrasts to create striking artworks.

I then went on to the Analogous colours, which are the colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel. I think they help to create a harmonious colour scheme and artists like Van Gogh have used them to their full effect on the paintings below.

With this exercise I decided to try neat mixes of colour as well as ones mixed with white paint. I also wanted to test out all the secondary colours suggested.
The first scale I worked on was the Orange/Red to Green/Blue noticing the different shades of Brown to grey colours I had created, which would be suitable for when painting landscapes, trees or perhaps even townscapes.
The next scale was the Violet to Dark Green, which created some interesting shades of Blues/Grey’s and Teal, all would work well if I was painting water scenes.
I then worked on the Orange to Violet which created some shades of Brown which I thought if mixed with a bit more white, would work well for flesh tones.
Last of all was the Green to Orange scale which created some Amber, Ochre and Green shades. Again I could use these mixes if I was painting landscapes, trees or even a beach scene.
I think the white mixes helped to create a more solid colour throughout. I think they also helped to make flesh tones when mixed with the Violet and Orange or the Green and Orange.
I also did a little colour diagram below in my sketchbook, just to get an idea of further tertiary colour mixes. Its perhaps worth noting the different colour backgrounds (White and Grey) also create different effects with the colours, the Violet and Orange seem to pop more when on a grey background.

I have used Acrylics for this exercise working on a mid grey background, and then picking out all of the primary colours from my paint box I began juxtaposing the different shades to find the most intense shade. With the neat mixes I found that the lemon yellow was the most brightest of the four and especially when placed next to yellow ochre shade. I then mixed the different shades of yellow with white and found that the most intense colours were a mix between medium yellow and lemon yellow.

The most intense colour with the different shades of blue was the Cobalt blue, except for when it was placed next to light blue and then they seemed like they were equally bright. I found again even when mixed with white the Cobalt blue was the brightest shade of blue.

I found it difficult to distinguish with the reds and even when they were mixed with white, they went more of a pink shade. I decided in the end though that the cadmium red was the most intense of the reds.

I then went on to create a scale of yellow through to red, yellow through to blue and red through to blue. I also did scales using a bit of white paint, which I think helped to create more intense solid colours, but it also helped to identify where the primary colours turned into secondary colours more clearly.
Lastly I experimented with different blue and red combinations to create different hues of violet. I think the magenta and ultramarine blue combination worked best. 

I started my first attempt with acrylic paint at the black end of the scale mixing a small dab of white in and getting lighter till I reached the lightest shades of grey and then white. I don’t think I managed to get the clear tonal progression I was after with this attempt so then went on to start off with white acrylic paint, adding a dab of black every time and mixing in a small amount of water, so the paint wouldn’t dry up too quickly. This seemed to create a more clear tonal step of shades so I went on to do another using this method. I found the mid grey tone somewhere between two of the shades I had created so I tried to create a blend of this tone to paint on the scraps of paper. I placed the scraps of paper at either end of this scale, one being beside the white and the other by the black end. What I noticed about the grey next to the white was that it appeared lighter in tone then the one placed by the black end of the scale.
I found this exercise harder than I initially thought it was going to be as you have to take into consideration the drying time of acrylics, the equal measures of paint to add each time and there was also the mixing of colour to create a completely even mix of each shade.