Still Life Drawings

 When we did observational drawings of the still life, I used a variety of drawing techniques to capture the shapes.
First I used white pen on black paper, in 10 minutes this was the outcome, I just stated off by drawing everything in front of me, just capturing the main lines, without much detail, just as a warm up.

Next, I moved closer and looked at a small section of the still life, and spent 10 minutes focusing on light and dark, and adding more detail. I used a variety of pencils to try and add more depth to the piece also. I found by using the brown paper it made it easier to add shadows as it looks less harsh than it would have looked on white paper.

The next piece I did was in biro, on very thin white paper. I spent 10 minutes using continuous lines. I found this quite relaxing to do, as it was more abstract in the approach, as I could just squint my eyes and scribble with the pen, I was able to create both light and dark tones, which were able to blend quite easily by using different pressures with the pen.

 This piece, was influenced by Matthew Monahan, Swan 2011. I looked at one object of the still life and focused on the contrast, and removed pigment off the page instead of adding it. I placed down a patch of dark tones using charcoal and then used a rubber to remove where lighter tones were. I feel this gives a very soft look to the piece.

Following on from the above drawing, I did this piece influenced by Ciprian Muresan. I focused on only drawing the shadows of an object. I found this made the piece look a lot softer, as there's no harsh lines or defined marks, it just focuses on the light and how it reacts against the object


Next, I wanted to incorporated printing into the drawing, and created a mono print of the structure as a whole, everything I could see in front of me. I found this was effective at showing the main lines and contours of the still life. I found the textures the ink gave quite interesting and add an extra layer of depth to the piece.

This final piece I did, I layered two prints, I used red and blue to try and achieve a 3D effect. However, I found it very difficult to line up the prints. Although they don't line up, you can still see the idea I was going for, and by layering two prints, it adds a lot more depth to the piece as a whole.