Tonal realism part 2: Wrongness

This term in Tonal Realism, we are tasked with creating a painting. We’ll construct a space in which to place objects- so essentially creating whatever we want, so long as it has good proportions, composition and looks tonally realistic.

Having never done anything like this before, it sounded really fun at first but quickly became daunting. Week after week I misinterpreted the task, which frustrates me because I try really hard to listen to the assessment criteria at school. It didn’t help that I was absent in week 1 either 🙂

When I was absent, having made an effort to find out what we were up to before class started, I made a few constructions of paintings which sparked my interest. The problem was that all of my ideas subverted the scale of real life objects, which is a no-no for this piece at school. We want something that looks as though it could realistically exist at the scale it is painted in.

Since I wasted so much time on said wrongness, I thought I’d pay tribute to it by putting it here. Farewell wrongness, you will not be forgotten:

Basically I wanted a full-scale tree, swing and figure sprouting out of a jar on a windowsil – cool huh? Not for the purposes of this task though, doh!

My sketches of wrongness, playing with different kinds of composition for my windowsill world. I still really like these ideas, so I’ll shelve them for a personal painting project.

One should never waste time trying to push against assessment criteria, because no matter how much you think you like an idea, the rules are there for a reason- more often than not so we can learn. Learning is the whole reason we go to art school. So, onwards to what I’m supposed to be doing!

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