Q2: Still Life

For my quarter two project, I did a still life drawing. The drawing was of my glasses laying on the table in with it’s shadow projecting below it. Behind it lies my phone on top of a pencil that can not be seen. It’s shadows are present as well. When drawing this, I wanted to make the view seem like a real life image and realize later that it was drawn with pencil. For this, I used ebony pencils. The 4H was used to simply draw out the objects while the 4G created darker lines which were used for shadowing or making other lines more defined. My finger was used to give the illusion of shading.

Comparing this to my last project, self portrait, you can see a difference. That project was more personal, where I could add certain features to whoever I was drawing to give a certain theme or meaning. I used colors, added different features, and didn’t use my face. This project was more restricting because you could only draw what you saw. No adding or picturing what you think something should look like.

When creating my piece, I first drew my glasses. Second I worked on shadowing. Then drew the phone, followed by it’s shadowing. Lastly I reviewed my work for any lines I could make finer and shadowings to improve.

An artist that inspired me was Emma Gennet. I like how she draws her images on a black background. Visualization was an important skill to use in this project as you needed to be able to draw what you see and not what you think you should see. If the technique is not followed, then it’s not still life. A new technique I learned was using different pencils to give darker lines. And I’m most proud of the phone drawn in the background because I believe it was well done and it gives perspective to the glasses. In the end this was a great project that taught me more skills still life drawing. Although if I had to do it again, I’d recommend more time on the final drawing.

Link: http://www.emmabennett.info/(Click paintings)