Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Boring Still Life

It's not hard to figure out what I liked about this still life. I've always loved to do drapery. I saw this picture in a decorating magazine and was intrigued by the different kinds of cloth in the picture. Sydney had just given me a small box of hard pastels, so I forced myself out of my stagnant routine and tackled it. It is fairly big, 18x24? and looks better in the picture than it really is. I've spent time for three days on it and have decided to call it finished. It was a good reminder of why I have trouble with pastels.....I can't get the range of values that I like. Pastels are all about color, which doesn't intrigue me in the least. Of course the subject matter is bland as well. I started at the bottom, and once I had done the big blue-green drape my fun was over. The flowers were nothing but drudgery and the other drapes weren't intricate enough to hold my interest. With a subject as unexciting as this, the technique really has to be interesting, and although I tried at the end by putting charcoal lines here and there to clean up the edges, it was too little too late.

I'm not sorry I did it because it took up some of the seemingly endless empty hours that at this time constitute my life.
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