Anybody know how to set up a still life?

jebbycakes

I have my mock still life exam tomorrow and I've been trying for ages to get the set up right but it still looks wrong. Any suggestions?

http://i835.photobucket.com/albums/zz273/Jebby94/stilllife_zps4d7c3eff.jpg

The theme is baking and I was thinking of doing it all in different shades of pink colouring pencil on white paper. But if you've got another idea I'd love to hear it (:

looksee

Really you have to be moving stuff about to decide how it will be, but I would lose the knives and the syrup, and maybe add a couple of eggs (you could hard boil them for safety) and a lemon? Put the bag of flour at the back between the bowl and the tin, as it is very white and if it is to one side the arrangement will look lopsided. Leave the rolling pin on the bowl, lay the oven glove to the left front and put the tin on the left, beside the oven glove. Put eggs in front of the bowl a bit towards the middle of the arrangement, and put the spoon in the bowl to the right.

That may not be great, but its a start!

only18

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/boris-kustodiev/sweets-still-life

I would definatly drape a piece of material over a book as a backdrop... If you can paint the folds in the material it would look great.. think of objects with textures and shadows... Remember quality not quantity, I would have no more than 3 objects..

jebbycakes

only18 wrote: »

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/boris-kustodiev/sweets-still-life

I would definatly drape a piece of material over a book as a backdrop... If you can paint the folds in the material it would look great.. think of objects with textures and shadows... Remember quality not quantity, I would have no more than 3 objects..

I'm not allowed to use paint and I have to have 5 objects minimum. I like the idea of a fabric backdrop though.

looksee wrote: »

Really you have to be moving stuff about to decide how it will be, but I would lose the knives and the syrup, and maybe add a couple of eggs (you could hard boil them for safety) and a lemon? Put the bag of flour at the back between the bowl and the tin, as it is very white and if it is to one side the arrangement will look lopsided. Leave the rolling pin on the bowl, lay the oven glove to the left front and put the tin on the left, beside the oven glove. Put eggs in front of the bowl a bit towards the middle of the arrangement, and put the spoon in the bowl to the right.

That may not be great, but its a start!

Thanks for your help! (: I don't have a lemon unfortunately. But the set up is looking better. I'm supposed to be aware of the use of negative space when I'm setting it up so the general shape of the whole thing is important. The paper bags are for variation of texture, this is what I'm aiming for

This is with a backdrop and an extra bag of sugar:


Without the sugar:


Without the backdrop:


The eggs are a good addition I think

only18

Really nice the more deep wrinkles in the bag the better, adds depth, stray away from overly artificial objects such as plastics as they are difficult to make 3d/life like... Do you have some sort of carved glass/ceramic jug might work better than that black box? also if you are on a time schedual the patterns might slow you down on the tea mat?

mathepac

Hope you don't mind :

The wooden spoon as currently placed is a distraction leading the eye out of the picture. I'd suggest placing it on the counter-top with the "bowl" part bottom right and the handle angled towards the centre of the composition to lead the eye into the picture

The back-drop (colour is good IMHO) needs to have soft folds framing the arrangement; the sharp creases are distracting

I'm not sure about the flour packet, it seems too dominant. I'd be inclined to arrange the composition with the wooden bowl on its side with the other stuff spilling out of it.

jebbycakes

only18 wrote: »

Really nice the more deep wrinkles in the bag the better, adds depth, stray away from overly artificial objects such as plastics as they are difficult to make 3d/life like... Do you have some sort of carved glass/ceramic jug might work better than that black box? also if you are on a time schedual the patterns might slow you down on the tea mat?

Drawing glass scares me lol. It's a metal loaf tin. Yeah, I'm a little worried about timing. We only get 2 and and a half hours. I have a couple of ceramic milk jugs, which do you think looks better? I prefer the first I think





sorry the picture's so bad

jebbycakes

mathepac wrote: »

Hope you don't mind :

The wooden spoon as currently placed is a distraction leading the eye out of the picture. I'd suggest placing it on the counter-top with the "bowl" part bottom right and the handle angled towards the centre of the composition to lead the eye into the picture

The back-drop (colour is good IMHO) needs to have soft folds framing the arrangement; the sharp creases are distracting

I'm not sure about the flour packet, it seems too dominant. I'd be inclined to arrange the composition with the wooden bowl on its side with the other stuff spilling out of it.

I don't mind at all, the more help and opinions I can get the better. Like this? (ignore the gap between the jug and the flour, just an accident )



I think I'll leave the flour, because my main issue in the past will still life was having everything the same texture. So I want to show variation in texture. Colour isn't an issue because everything's going to be different shades of pink colouring pencil (I think.) I'd like to do proper colour but I don't think I'll have time in the 2 and a half hours.

mathepac

Yes that's better IMHO, just to turn the jug (spout in) as it "points" out of the picture at the moment.

Covering the rolling-pin motif on the flour-bag with the sugar-bag is a good idea.

Now if you could place the rolling-pin outside the jug angled to draw the eye from the left into the centre of the composition and "tighten" the arrangement of the objects (hide part of the rolling pin behind the jug, hide part of the wooden spoon handle behind the tea-mat, move to bowl towards the centre, closer to the sugar, Id' say you're almost there.

Your angle of view is very good, helping to convince the viewer the objects are 3D.

Best of luck and I hope my input doesn't mess up your exam.

jebbycakes

mathepac wrote: »

Yes that's better IMHO, just to turn the jug (spout in) as it "points" out of the picture at the moment.

Covering the rolling-pin motif on the flour-bag with the sugar-bag is a good idea.

Now if you could place the rolling-pin outside the jug angled to draw the eye from the left into the centre of the composition and "tighten" the arrangement of the objects (hide part of the rolling pin behind the jug, hide part of the wooden spoon handle behind the tea-mat, move to bowl towards the centre, closer to the sugar, Id' say you're almost there.

Your angle of view is very good, helping to convince the viewer the objects are 3D.

Best of luck and I hope my input doesn't mess up your exam.

Ah, I see what you mean. Putting kind of diagonals towards the viewer to make it look more 3D. I like that idea, but I was going for this kind of thing with the rolling pin on top of the bowl:



I think I'll try and put the bowl with the rolling pin on top on the other side and point the rolling pin inwards, so there's a diagonal towards the centre. And then I'll turn the jug in towards the centre too.

Thank you I better get to bed. I'll let you know how it goes and try to post a picture after the break when I get it back.

Thanks for your help too everybody else

jebbycakes

End result I would've liked more time, I never got to the background. Just did the blue pastel in the last two minutes so everything didn't look like it was just floating. Thanks for the help ^__^