Project 4 : Painting water. Exercise: Still life with water

This exercise felt like an enjoyable break from the landscape painting, although like the ourse material stated it was not as easy as it sounded.

I noticed that the shapes became slightly distorted under the water and that the colours altered considerably and became much less saturated

First light waterolour sketch in my skethbook

A seond sketh using slightly more detail on the vase and banana

Working on the final painting using "standard" waterolours

Final painting using standard watercolours and a different perspective

I found that painting the partially submerged items was virtually impossible to do without the use of chinese white as a highlighter due to the way the light was falling onto the water it literally looked as though it was sparkling.

Vase and banana using annilinky inks

I wanted to push the boundaries of this exercise a little further by using a different media to try to create the impression of water, I have then highlighted some areas using bleach while the ink was still wet, which has given this soft, smudged appearance.

Vase and banana using annilinky and bleach

I completed my pieces on this exercise with another fairly abstract study using an alternative pallette of colours. I painted into the inks with a wet brush to give the shadows under the objects then I waited for the painting to dry. One the painting was dry I worked on the areas that the water touched the objects using bleach, and an particularly happy with the area around the banana, I think this area demonstrates how well this experiment has worked