Still Life Man Made Objects - Final Sketches

I continued to practise man-made objects as still did not feel satisfied I had worked on it enough. I chose to go back to black and white and used charcoal pencil for me initial sketches. I also wanted to focus on developing my observation and recreation of detail as this had been lacking so far in my sketches. That is the reason for my initial sketch of the bow necklace as I wanted to practise the detail and tone and form at the same time. I feel that sketch was a good improvement on my previous sketches.

I then went on to experiment with composition and consonance, composing an image of a jewellery box, necklace, earrings and lip gloss. I really enjoyed the sketch and liked how I had positioned the necklace sloping out of the jewellery box. Without it, the box would not have looked like a jewellery box and it may have been confusing to viewer. I did feel that the lip gloss distracted the eye from the rest of the sketch and so went on to remove it. I also wanted to change medium as the charcoal pencil used in the sketch prevented me from recreating clear detail.

The final sketch of this composition was using lead HB pencil. I felt the image was a lot calmer without the lip gloss in it and it made more sense. I did focus more on detail in this sketch, however I noticed that I then held back on the tone and form! Overall it is a good sketch though I feel.

Still Life Man Made Objects - Second Attempt

This is my second attempt at drawing still life man-made objects, taking into consideration consonance and composition and using my skills learnt so far. Overall I am pleased with this image, however I do feel there could be a better representation of tone and form. I have chosen 3 items which may be found on a Ladies dressing table; lip gloss, perfume and a necklace. I chose these as they are items which are associated with each other and this was my way of representing consonance. I considered the composition and practised moving around the items before settling on the final layout. I did not want to over-complicate the image, which is why I chose to place the necklace so that it was out of the shadows of the other two items. There is more detail on these items than I have represented on my drawing, mainly because I did not feel confident enough to draw the detail accurately. This is the next area I would like to focus on, along with continuing to develop my skills learnt so far.  I also wanted to use a lot of colour in this drawing as most of the items were very colourful and I also wanted to practise using my new colour pencils. I will continue to practise creating tone and form in colour.

Still Life Man Made Objects

Let me start of by saying these sketches were doomed from the start; mainly because I chose objects which are actually quite complex and also not of interest to me. The main object was a Courvoisier bottle, which is quite complex with the detailing, angles and thick glass and heavy light reflection. I then tried to add similar objects to complete the image. However all three of my sketches were poor and got worse with each drawing. The first was supposed to be a rough sketch anyway, however it still to me looks like a child has drawn it. I did benefit from it however as it gave me an understanding of the composition of the image and made me realise I was trying to make it too busy. The second and third sketches were just awful as I soon realised I could not draw the bottle and lost all interest in drawing it. So I have decided I need to start again with items I ‘like’ and also need to seriously invest in some good quality colour pencils! My downfall may have also been because I was placing them on a soft surface which was the bed, due to a lack of working space.

Reflected Light - Check and Log

I have now completed the reflected light section of assignment one. Overall I did enjoy this section and have really seen an improvement in my drawings as a result of the exercise. This is specifically shown in my final drawing of two metallic pots using charcoal on A3. This was the first time I used a large piece of paper to draw on as I used A3. It was thoroughly enjoyable however and I feel the final result was my strongest drawing in the reflected light section. Initially I struggled to see the reflected light patterns, but I found that through practise I managed to draw it successfully.

I have found it a lot easier to identify the two different patterns of light and shade on rounded objects such as jars. Initially when I using my rubber to create the patterns of reflected light, I felt uncomfortable and felt that I was adding in patterns which weren’t necessary there and which did not look realistic. However I forced myself to trust my instincts and my eyes and go with the flow. This really helped and the final result was quite effective. It definitely helped to half close my eyes to study the objects and fully see the shadow and light patterns before drawing. I feel this has really helped to develop my observation skills.