Black and White vs Colour - Conte Crayon and Watercolour table and chairs

When I was in Secondary 2 (Augest - September 2011), my art teachers, Mr Robertson and Ms Yap, brought the class on an excursion to Chinatown. We were supposed to take photographs of buildings or man-made structures. I chose to take a photograph of a marble table and the chairs around it. It was in a cafe in one of the buildings of Chinatown.

After printing out our chosen photo, we then had to trace out our photograph on a A3 size paper using a lightbox. With reference to our printed photograph, we were supposed to duplicate it, but in blacks, whites and grays and with conte crayon (they were in small, rectangular blocks) as a medium.

I have never used conte crayons in my life before. They do not work like pencil or charcoal, though they are somewhat similar. The conte crayons have a texture between that of pencil and charcoal. They break when force is applied, so we had to be very careful no to apply too much force. The crayons were given to us in small rectangular blocks, which made controlling extremely difficult. In the end, I ended up buying a set of conte crayons in the form of pencils, so that I could get into the small corners.

Here is my completed conte crayon work

Close up of marble tables

Close up of some chairs

 The program flipped the photo upside down and I have no idea how to upright it. Close up of part of marble table with another chair.

Conte crayons in pencil form, which helped in the details

My photograph was one of a marble table, and since I took the photograph in the afternoon with the sun reflecting off the table top, there were marble reflections on the whole table top. It was so difficult to recreate these reflections. I tried my best to copy the reflections as accurately as possible. This was also my first time using watercolor paints. I kept making mistakes, so I layered the paints on top of each other.

Here is my completed watercolor work.

Close up of marble tables

Close up of chair

Close up of background tables and chairs

In both of these times, I had to use mediums that I have never used before, and they took a lot of getting used to. It was really difficult trying to find out tricks and tips on how to work best with these mediums, and I had to try by experimenting. I thought that I would do badly in these 2 assignments, since I was so new to everything. However, after all the hours of hard work, I learnt that one should never give up, and all the effort is worth it.