Still Life

Still Life in Drawing & Painting II asks students to engage deeply with observation, composition, and selective focus. Rather than creating their own setups, students worked from two large, complex still lifes constructed in the classroom. Each arrangement contained a dense variety of objects, textures, and spatial relationships, offering multiple possible points of entry and visual emphasis.

Students were challenged to make intentional compositional choices—deciding where to concentrate, what to include or exclude, and how to crop the scene. This required careful consideration of balance, scale, negative space, and visual hierarchy. Although students worked from the same source material, no two drawings are alike; each reflects a unique perspective and a different solution to the same visual problem.

Working primarily in graphite, students focused on advanced rendering skills including value control, surface texture, and the illusion of depth through overlapping forms and atmospheric contrast. Attention to light, material, and edge quality helps unify each composition while reinforcing the chosen focal area.

This project emphasizes that strong drawing is not only about accuracy, but about decision-making. By navigating a shared still life and responding to its complexity with intention, students demonstrate how compositional awareness transforms observation into expressive, personal work.