Assignment 2 and beyond!

So having submitted Assignment 1 together with exercises 1 and 2, I have set my sights on Assignment 2 and the exercises leading up to it. I am feeling mixtures of excitement and being overwhelmed at some of the exercises leading up to Assignment 2, and Assignment 2 itself...SOooOo to conquer these fears, I decided to do things a little back to front today and launch myself into experimenting with food illustrations as foundations for assignment 2. I have therefore decided to post a few of my preliminary sketchbook samples that will hopefully form a foundation in the experimentation leading up to the final assignment. Time will tell!!

I decided to try do a watercolour of an artichoke as my first experiment! I chose the two artichokes as I saw them in our local supermarket and they reminded me of king Proteas...so I decided to paint them.
I completed the painting from life vs a photo. I am new to watercolours so this was a challenge in itself, but I decided to chance it as I have recently been inspired by the food illustrations of Georgina Luck and Emma Dibben.

Being new to watercolours as a medium, I decided to use a limited palate so the colours I used were: Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, Lemon Yellow and Viridian Green. Towards the end I decided to add Yellow Ochre to the mix as I felt the lemon yellow had a slight habit of sometimes making a mixed colour appear a little dirty.

 I also chose to try watercolours as they are translucent and I hoped that this would further aid in giving the final image an appetising and edible look!

As an experiment, I enjoyed the watercolour process immensely!...Especially the paint spraying at the end! Using a limited palate forced me to create my own colours and tones but meant that they weren't always a completely accurate representation of the colours in the artichokes. I decided to use a bit of artistic license on this point tho as my primary aim was to make the artichokes particularly appealing so I emphasised some of the more subtle colours in the natural artichoke and tried to ensure that I included as much contrast as possible.

What would I change?
a.) I didn't pay alot of attention to composition and actually this did create some difficulty as I struggled initially with distinguishing the two artichokes from eachother. I will aim to pay greater attention to this for the next experiment.
b.) I also started on the front artichoke and at one stage seemed to be overworking it so decided to contrast that with a slightly looser style for the back artichoke....also as another way of distinguishing them from each other.
c.) I decided to just use water-colours but next time I'd like to incorporate using pen and ink as well.
d.)I'm not sure if tonally the artichokes that I have done appear too similar as the main thing I struggled with was ensuring they didn't merge into one.

Does it work? 

I am happy with the image for it's purpose as an experiment as it seemed to happen quite organically. I am aware that I do not want to replicate the styles of Georgina Luck and Emma Dibben who have been very successful in marketing a number of upmarket supermarket fruit and veg products, among other things! 

With this in mind I will continue the experimental process and look to try other media. I would, however, like to develop this image little further using text if time allows.