Kitchen reflections

Diana Boanas suggests painting a still life of everyday KITCHEN EQUIPMENT AS THE LIGHT AND REflECTIONS FROM METAL POTS AND PANS AND OTHER REflECTIVE SURFACES CAN MAKE FOR AN eye-catching watercolour

Diana Boanas suggests painting a still life of everyday kitchen equipment as the reflections from metal pots and pans and other reflective surfaces can make for an eye-catching watercolour

Watercolour, with its translucency and versatility, is an ideal medium for painting metal. There will always be an element of rebellious behaviour from the paint, particularly when working wet-into-wet but the resulting blending of colour is well worth the risk.

I enjoy painting domestic scenes and kitchen equipment, where dramatic light transforms ordinary objects into ones of extraordinary beauty. Light streaming through my kitchen window created a wonderful light show on the pans and tiles behind them. It was my aim to capture the intense light on the wall with the extremely dark surrounding reflections on the smooth metal, without getting too involved in detail.

Planning the composition

I took a series of photographs, all of which have beautifully dramatic light, then played around with cut-out pieces of the printed images to find a pleasing composition, in addition to drawing some tonal studies. Some of my work is completely hand drawn but in this instance I did much of my planning and composing with the camera, so a bit of tracing didn’t seem like cheating.

I was tempted to stick rigidly to copying my images but editing both colour and content becomes easier with experience when working from a photographic image. Watercolour

paintings need careful planning, particularly in retaining the white of the paper. Because the washes were very wet I used colours straight from the tube and let them blend naturally, which was a joy to observe. I used a limited palette for this painting, so it was essential to take care in leaving the highlights to add form and light along with describing the texture of the metals .

Techniques

Laying the initial washes on the pans was an exciting part of the painting and where the overall shape of the composition started to take place. At this stage of a painting I have the option to make alterations, if necessary. Lifting out is a technique I use a lot as a variety of highlights can be achieved – highlighting by lifting out areas of paint is a part of the process of creating marks with soft and harder edges.

Two techniques create richness and depth in watercolour washes and I used both in this painting. Mixing colour on the paper offers a colour with depth, as can be seen on the foreground pan lid in particular (page 49). When working with larger wetin-wet areas, strong paint is applied to compensate for the diluting effect of all the water. This is a skill that takes a lot of practice and one that is a combination of experiment and experience. Layering of colour also gives the appearance of depth.

I like to block in a few extremes of tonal value, which helps place the mid tones. Painting the background in conjunction with the subject results in a less ‘stuck on’ appearance as, in most instances, the two merge comfortably together. If either the background or foreground isn’t working as hoped, it’s easier to play a little with tonal values and colour in unison, as many of the background colours are echoed in the subject items. This is particularly so when painting transparent or reflective subjects.

Standing back from the work regularly is beneficial for assessing tonal values. I also take photographs which, when seen on a smaller screen, highlight issues not noticed when sitting on top of the work.