11 September 2009




Course work: Completed work on Assignment 1, Section 5 (Still Life), p 24, with a bit of touching up here and there, and application of a few highlights. (Then I sliced up my subjects and cooked squash and onions for supper.) Completed the negative space and perspective exercises on pp 26-27. The selected objects were a pear, a can of solvent, a large flashlight, and a cup. The first drawing was done using one color for the upper line, a second for the lower, and a third for the lines that completed the general outline of the objects. The second part of the exercise was done with ball-point pen in the course sketchbook: trying to draw the negative shapes while keeping the pen on the paper proved much more difficult than the first part of the exercise. Several tries were required in order to get an even remotely satisfactory result, and I think that this is something on which I need to do some additional work.



Summary Observations on Still Life (Check and Log): This section took longer than I had anticipated, in part because I got overenthusiastic and made my first set of thumbnail drawings far too large, and in part because of a poor paper choice for the final drawing, which required my starting over again. I did not find a great difference between natural and artificial objects as far as difficulty in suggesting three dimensions: either can have simple or complex shapes. (Natural objects may be a bit more forgiving in the depiction of contour.) I think I was able to create a reasonable suggestion of solidity in my work in this section. Creating multiple thumbnail drawings was very helpful in ultimately choosing a final composition: these thumbnails made it possible for me to assess how direct light, reflected light, and shadow would affect the balance, depth, and overall pattern of the final piece.



Reading:

E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art,

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Chapters 6-7 (pp 94-112)



(No author listed: Translated by Natalia Tizon), Art of Sketching

Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 2007

Pp 62-110



Personal sketchbook work: A sketch of a loblolly pine cone, and a drapery sketch.

Total time: about two hours