Owl and Apple – Light and Shade Studies

This week’s Life Book lessons were all about light and shade and creating contrast.

The primary lesson was by Lynn Whipple who had taught the Jar of Favourites lesson earlier in the year.  The idea was to create a monochrome study in light, dark and intermediate tones and consider how the visual might suggest something about other types of contrast such as perception of human qualities or lists of pros and cons.

Lynn Whipple’s demonstration was a study of an apple but I decided to use another subject for my still life.  After looking around the house, my eyes finally settled on a little stone carving of an owl that I bought in Crete years ago.  It seemed appropriate as a nocturnal creature that it should be the basis of a study in light and shade and it also has some nice nooks and crannies that would create contrast.

I decided to sketch directly with the India ink, no pencil outline, and worked the ink with a wet brush.  I liked drawing with ink on top of the book pages.  I think that is something I will return to again.  I should also endevour to do more still life studies to hone my observational skills.

The second lesson was a bonus lesson taken by Tamara Laporte.  It was another still life of an apple and this time I decided I would stick with the apple as the subject.  I used my Liquitex acrylics to build up the red tones of the apple, six different colours of paint excluding the white for the highlights.  I could not get the camera to capture the darkest tones accurately.  They are actually quite maroon.