Traditional Drawing - Week 2 Year 2

 Week 2 - Shape and Pattern

For this week, we had to pay attention to the patterned surfaces of objects in a real still life scenario in the studio.

Visual Reference:

I had the option of two still life scenarios to choose from, and chose this still life which had a focus on the plants again and the pattern on the pot. the other scenario had a lot of shells overlapping each other, which because my angle was not very clear of that piece I discarded it.

Original Reference image of still life (colour)

Reference, grayscale and increased contrast

Thumbnails:

I knew that already I was going to have to adjust the composition of this piece since the composition ended up looking really empty in the top left, so I began with some basic sketches before discussing with Teo about how this could be remedied. The top left sketch is of the other still life, while all the other sketches came from my chosen still life. I attempted to draw this still life to scale multiple times and I am happy that I used thumbnails, since it allowed me to practice the scaling of the objects in page frames.

Thumbnails attempt 1

The two sketches added to the bottom illustrate the adjusted composition, where the diagonal composition was disrupted by raising the shell collection up a bit. This disruption makes the image feel more full and interesting, and allows for more overlapping to convey depth in the piece.

Thumbnails after composition critique

Initial quick render:

I then began blocking out the values in the composition, and once again used a grid to make sure that the proportions matched my thumbnail, I chose to include the drapery this week even though it was optional because I thought it would contextualise the piece more, and the bottom vase was in this context in real life and if I chose to not add the drapery but to draw the glass vase it would have the correct values. by having this section of mid tone in the piece it also gave a context for the light shell and the dark pot as to what the values were, as without it it would have been much harder to get the values without over correcting and making each object a lot more contrasted than what the material properties constituted. I did this stage before receiving critique.

Sketch and some basic values, before critique

Acting on Critique:

The main critique I received was that the symmetry of the pot was incorrect and the shape needed adjusting (especially around the main curvature). Other than that the piece mainly needed more rendering and progress, which I continued when I returned home.

Partial render after critique

Final Piece:

The main focus I had was on blending the darker areas with a tissue, as my paper has some tooth to it which made it harder to make the darker areas of value truly consistently dark. after doing this, it really helped make the piece look like on cohesive image and also make the areas of detail such as the pattern pot and the small vase stand out more as focal areas of detail. I kept the value on the shell very low in comparison so that the surface properties appeared different to the pot and vase.

Final Piece

Conclusion:

in conclusion, I think this piece is not quite as strong as my work last week. I enjoyed working on it but I think again I also needed to work with a sharper pencil in areas like the flowers because again my lines look very feathery and not confident. The pattern on the pot also struggles with the shape and the curvature in perspective. I think areas like the handle were very successful in making the forms apparent and the sharp lines look very confident in contrast.