Bottles WIP

[catchlight]

I'm trying to squeeze this one in amongst the commissions I got myself into at the moment. I've not had a chance yet to enter an art show and I really really want to, particularly this one! It's run through my cities public art gallery every year and is exclusively for drawing in any graphic medium.

Anyways, I'm going to do a few entries, I still have a couple of months and this one will be my first if it goes well! I'll be using polychromos and some prismacolor too *beam* on Figueras paper. I've just done the preliminary sketch but you can't see it at all in a scan as it's too light so I'll post when I get something you can see!

It's one of my favourite subjects, glass and I took the photo myself and I like the difficult variations in value in it, it'll take a bit to get right (pics a bit ick but I know what I want to improve and I have the original set up in front of me anyway). I'm not going to have the black bit at the top (where my drawing table ran out) and the surface it's sitting on will be mostly white away from the shadows - well at this stage anyway.

Anyhoo, C&C as welcome as always Hopefully have something to post in an hour or two This is the ref and the greyscale of the ref for starters anyway.

[gordoiye]

i actually like the black bit at the top of the page, or you could move it to the bottom - it adds another little dimension. Think of the nice rich black you could achieve with those brand new prismas - careful you don't get addicted to them wendy!!

let's hear what everyone else thinks

cheers,
gord

[catchlight]

It's funny you said that because I was tossing up about that. What does everyone else think indeed?

[catchlight]

Well here's my first update after a whole world of messing around! Scratch the Figueras paper, that sucked and was not going to work with this at all, I couldn't get the layers smooth enough for some reason so scrapped the whole thing and moved it to Arches...then discovered I'd put it smack dab into the watermark so scratched THAT and went to another bit of Arches and finally all is underway.

All I've done so far is lay down the first base colour in Polychromos Light Magenta after putting in some little white highlights. I've laid on the magenta thick in some places where it'll be dark and not require too many more layers anyway and thin in area's where it'll lighten up.

This scan is only of the bottle I'm working on right now, one at a time. The whole thing is about 50cm by 30cm (leaving enough room to decide on a crop and or the black bit! At the moment it's laid out the same as the pic.

[trudette]

Great to see you work on this picture and a lovely one too.
I can learn a lot just watching you.
What kind of paper do you use ?

trudette

[CAULFIELD]

How fun! I'm glad you are going to enter something - you will do fabulously, I'm sure.

I'm a bit uneasy about the composition - it seems too centered... glad you are going to leave room to adjust. What is your center of interest? The bottle openings, the reflections? Maybe try putting you focal point in a "sweet Spot" and see how it looks.

That said - I can't wait to watch this develop bit by bit - so please give us many progress shots.

Nicole

[catchlight]

Hi Trudette and thankyou for your lovely comments I'm using Arches Hotpress on this one, it's my favourite. I started out on Figueras but that was not going well so I started over Nice to meet you!

Thankyou Nicole I'm feeling very brave at this stage, may be considerably different once it comes time to post my entries I'm not thrilled with the composition as yet either, thankfully I have tons of room round it to adjust it. I was thinking of going for the blue bottles opening as a focus but my mind changes pretty often on it. I'm just not sure So any suggestions would be enormously welcome!

I've now been using polychromos purple to do some darker tones, much darker still to come and plenty in between. It's looking pretty ugly at the moment, maybe I should call it "bottles at the end of the world" I have confidence that it'll end up looking like pretty pinky purple glass (mostly!). I'm off to bed now but hopefully I'll get a chance to do some more tomorrow

[wet]

I am watching Wendy. You are a master with glass. I just love the colors. wanda

[AuntBe1]

Hi Wendy! Looks great, can't wait for the pinky purples to come in!! Looks great!
Belinda

[piper2]

Originally Posted by catchlight

It's looking pretty ugly at the moment, maybe I should call it "bottles at the end of the world"

Except for with a name like that you know the folks here will be clamoring for you to finish it. At least that's what I suspect from past experience . . .

I considered the black bit (Prismas can make some lovely murky blacks, total octopus ink) but I decided that I for one don't like the idea. It'll just make it look funny once you frame and mat it. I think just off-center the bottles. And maybe add a small bottle in the distance on the horizen, so that we have an idea what these bottles are looking at.

[catchlight]

Thanks Bel and Wanda I think this is going to be fun

Maggie, you are a giggle Perhaps I could add some lightening too? The black bit is a bit of a worry, darned if I know what to do with it! I change my mind like the wind.

Well here's my last couple of hours worth of updates.
The first one, I did a wash fo sky blue and added some darks using blue violet.

Next one, I added some indigo to the brightly reflected side and then did a heavy white wash for reflections. And then it happened! I got brave and used a prismacolor at last! My polychromos white wasn't intense enough (whence why I use acrylic fairly often) so I went over again with the prisma white and it was far more intense.

Then I did washed in manganese violet washes.

And the last one I did a white polychromos wash over the whole thing, a little heavier in the lighter parts. I used the main wash to blend the colours more and make them look more glassy, basically to burnish it a bit.

Back to it now

[piper2]

Well, lightning, of course, is a great idea, but I think I'm liking this one the way it is. When I look at your ref., I'm still seeing some darker darks on the top lip of the bottle, but even the way it is it looks gloriously glassy. (I have not been brave enough to try glass myself).

I'm surprised that you didn't tackle the bottle being steam-rollered at the same time, considering it's goign to use a lot of the same colors. And the shadow for that matter!

Well, waiting patiently for the next update. And the arrival of bottle #2 on the scene. I'm sure it will be enviously glassy as well.

[catchlight]

You're right about that top lip for sure Am just gonna work on that now. Don't be too rash about the lightening though, you never know where that's gonna fit, not sure if the speech bubbles would like quite right coming from bottles though hehe

I really SHOULD be doing all the pinks at one time but for some reason my brain just doesn't stretch to doing all at once, well combination of brain and patience. I usually end up doing one independant little bit at a time, writing down what colour i'm using so that I can use it for the shadows and next bottle. I'm a little back to front but I get there in the end hehe

[Weezy]

Seeing as how I know NOTHING about glass I am enjoying this immensely. thanks for the intense blow-by-blow pictures. Just keep explaining for us noobies to painting glass, Wendy! You are doing a great job as far as I can see.

[catchlight]

Thankyou Weezy

Here's the next update. I hope you really do want the blow by blows because I'm certainly doing that!

Okay this time. First one I added indigo for the darks and middle purple pink washes.

Then Magenta Dark washes, used prismacolor Tuscan red and polychromos black for the dark darks.

Finally I used white prisma for the bright brights and added a couple more magenta washes and that's it for bottle one! Now on to bottle two the blue one, I'm looking forward to this because it reminds me of Paua shell (New Zealand version of Abalone, looks similar but more intense colours).