I was sure I’d like to draw an interior for this assignment however for a short time I considered some half-withered flowers in a vase. When I finally decided that it must be something else, I started roaming in the rooms with no success for a while. I sat down helplessly in the living room with a what-am-I-gonna-do face and then I saw it. The door was wide open because I was waiting for the postman (the bell isn’t working) and the lights came through the outer door, two umbrellas peeped out from our ridiculously small ante-room, the scene looked interesting.
First sketches with different media (pen, pencil) and small details..
I knew that the real challenge would be using colours, because I hardly ever used them in the past. I didn’t know what to use first, so I tried with pastels then watercolour pencils
I have never used watercolour pencils before, I had to try them out first. I really liked them and even though the pastel looked better, I decided to use watercolour because of the smaller details. Later on I realized that the chance of more smudging was in direct proportion with colour intensity and I could not work the fine details out well.
I started with the line drawing to catch the best perspective and proportion.
Then I started put the colours on. I used water pencils, some pastels for the bigger area and white ink for the small highlights.
I was quite happy with the chosen colours. Several shades of brown, from the lightest through reddish mahogany to the darkest. The yellow walls and my olive coloured coat hanging at the back created truly beautiful colour composition. The umbrellas are not quite fitting into the scene so I cheated a little. I wanted something a bit harshly sticking out from this harmony and because my son’s umbrella with the red/blue strips (Fireman Sam themed) just looked simply wrong, I changed it into a rather vibrant orange/green stripped one.
The final piece
Self assessment
Visual and technical skills: my compositions seems to be better than at the very beginning, but my technical skills have to improve way more. Also, I missed to work out some details.
Quality of outcome: since I started to communicate my feelings and ideas I keep facing the fact that I do not always draw what I see, it’s rather what I think I see and that’s frustrating and overwhelming sometimes. I am not completely unhappy with this drawing – it taught me more- but it is still far from my intention.
Creativity: I don’t think that was a particularly brave or creative approach to the subject but there are parts of it I like.
Context reflection: I have found amazing works of different artists – through the researches – I have never seen before and in my small spare time I actually tried very different approaches from several inspiring art movements and hardly wait to try some more.
LaraDraw 