Final Still Life Drawing

Essential Question: What are the necessary skills to create a convincing still life drawing?

Purpose:

• To create a still-life drawing that demonstrates understanding of angles & ellipses in perspective, along with using a chosen and conscious mark-making technique to describe form;

• To understand value by creating a good range of values between black & white to help make the objects appear 3D;

• To demonstrate quality craftsmanship and good composition skills in a drawing.

Artists Studied: Henry Moore, Giorgio Morandi, Vincent van Gogh, Winslow Homer, John Whalley

Reflection:

In my value drawing, I used Henry Moore’s technique; cross-hatching. This kind of mark-making helped create value in my drawing because, with this method, it was very easy flowing from dark cross-hatching to light. Anytime I needed to change the value from light to dark, or dark to light I could ease into it by using the value scale in the cross-hatching. I think cross-hatching is also a method personally, that really adds emphasis to the objects. (More than other methods) That is why I chose to cross-hatch. I thought it was the most unique method.

I notice that in my first drawing, I did not have any of the proportions right for any of the objects, but when I look at my second drawing, all the objects are in perspective and look like they are in the right place. Throughout this drawing unit, I have learned how to put objects in perspective, get the proportions right, and use a value scale properly in order to create depth and make objects stand out without just outlining them. I learned that if you just outline an object, it does not fully define it. You need to use value in order to distinguish the objects from others.

Four skills that are necessary for creating a convincing still life are proportions, perspective, value, and edges. You need to make sure that the objects are in proportion because otherwise, the whole drawing will not look properly done. And objects won’t be the right size in relation to one another. As for perspective, you need to make sure the objects are in the right place because then they look out of place, and not real. Next, for value, you need to make sure you have differences in the value because the objects are not all one value. Cross-hatching, hatching, and controlled scribbling are examples of how to add value to your drawing to make the shadows flow. Finally, you need to make sure the edges of your objects are defined because if there are different value changes between objects you need to be able to see that change. If you define part of the edges of the objects it helps show where the change in value is.