This week's assignment has been a little rough. Just a little bit.
In regards to my three object gouache, I had initially started (#redundant) with three different objects. I had a cupcake, an elephant, and Theodore Roosevelt. (In searching for images of the latter, I discovered this gem http://fuckyeatheodoreroosevelt.tumblr.com/ and may have spent wayyyy too much time perusing the site. Does that figure into my nine hours? Probably not. Good.) So anyway, I was about half - maybe a fourth - of the way through and realized it wasn't working. Mainly because that demon spectrum red that I was struggling with. The elephant was pink, as were were forced advised to not use the same color as it had been in the photographic reference. And if even an ounce of spectrum red is in the mixture, the whole thing is just stained a horrid shade of pink. So the whole gouache pickout technique was not working.
So what is one to do? Obviously scrap the piece. (Actually I still have it and may post a picture of it if I find the time and/or the motivation. It wasn't the worst thing in the world but I wasn't happy with it). Also, the composition was a little off. So naturally I spent the next hour or so with Photoshop painstakingly arranging three separate images in the hopes of creating a decent composition. I ended up with some cupcakes, a giraffe, and a teapot. I started with this idea that I wanted to use really bright colors and it would look crazy and cool and all it was was a hot mess. It was bad. It went straight in the trash about five minutes in. Maybe about fifteen. I don't know, all I know is that I actually threw it away.
So third time's a charm, right? I redrew the composition and then only used a black and white photo for reference ... so I was not even tempted to use the original colors. I used muted hues because I of what happened with the bright colors, and knew that I could introduce those cRaZaY colors in later if necessary. (Also please ignore my reversion to the kind of internet language of about 2006, apparently blogging this early makes me type like I did in the 7th grade.) So I used a blueish gray deal for the teapot, which is what I did first, because I'm more of a "let's build my confidence and then I'll think I'm able to conquer the rest of this deal" rather than "let's do the hardest part but OH MY GOD this is a shitshow and it's never going to get better" girl when it comes to projects like this. So moral of the story, the teapot came first.
Then came the cupcakes. Those were a little rough. I used the whole spectrum red dealio for these to my advantage, as I whipped up a brown hue for the icing parts which had a little spectrum red thrown in the mix, so that when I scrubbed (and did not cause pilling of the paper this time around, thank you very much) it lifted up to a nice light pinkish. Which was great. The wrappers of the cupcake aren't my favorite thing in the world but hey, they're alright.
Thennnnn the giraffe happened. I was a little afraid of it. But it wasn't that bad. It was actually almost kind of fun. There were a lot of highlights which was nice because it makes the pick out technique a lot easier and kind of fulfills the purpose of the picking out. And everything's in proportion, so that's good. I did run into a few of those pencil lines whilst picking out the neck which were a bit of a nuisance because I just wanted to be a free spirit with those spots but fate wouldn't have it so I was bound by the constraints of my original sketch. But alas, it turned out alright. Apparently the giraffe needs "definition" and a little "contrast" (note the quotes ... that means I'm not entirely sure that's going to happen but maybe I will forego all of my other classes/responsibilities/semblance of a healthy social life in order to make that happen by portfolio. We shall see about that.) And finally I threw in a few little baby white highlights and a smorgasbord of hues for the background. It's a little trippy. Actually it's a lot of trippy. But it's alright. I'm okay with it.
(once again we have the award winning iPhone photography working in our favor ... I'll scan it someday and by someday I mean by next Wednesday for the portfolio)
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