For my 2D: Design Elements & Principles class of my BoP (Bachelor of Photography) project, my second assignment was to create a Digital Still Life Painting. For this exercise, I first had to develop a digital still life to work from. I sourced images from websites like Pexels and tried to collect ones with light coming from the same direction. Then I had to cut out each element and place it in a Photoshop Document Until I had an interesting composition. Then I flattened my image and exported a .jpg. This was my final composition.
At this point, I had to apply a filter to my image - Stylize - Find Edges and adjust the brightness and contrast until it was easy to see. So my project looked like this:
Then I had to choose a neutral background colour, change my reference image from a "Normal" layer style to "Multiply" and then place a layer in between these to do the actual painting.
Using the .jpg I saved as my visual reference, I blocked out the main elements with a hard round brush. Then I added a coloured gradient to the background, blended with soft and hard brushes to bring the details out, and finally painted in shadows until I had a completed digital still life (the first image in this article). The entire process took me a few hours!
What This Taught Me
The entire project was a lesson in patience! But seriously, I had to consider the light direction and the shadows that should be cast, the composition, and the colour scheme. I worked with layer styles, gradients, soft and hard brushes, and opacity. So many details had to be observed and transferred to the finished product. Depicting various surface textures: glass, yard, bone, and plant, was more challenging than I expected. Surprisingly, it resembles what I hoped!
Critique:
This is a pleasing composition organized into a triangle composition. The piece exhibits variety in elements and repetition in the round and flower shapes. The tones and shading are fairly well done and cohesive except for the orange on the butterfly wings. While the orange existed in the original composition, I could have taken the liberty to shift the colour to match the scene. The orange pulls your attention away from the scene as a whole. The light appears to be coming from the left of the frame for all included objects. The timepiece is a tad misshapen, and the bottle top’s lines are wavy but these things may come with more practice. On the whole, I am happy with it. I'm surprised I created this!
What do you think? I'd appreciate any feedback you have for me!