Drawing from Life

This lesson is about setting up our compositions for the week. We talk about the Rule of Thirds where if we have the image broken up into nine boxes, we want the focal points of the composition to be where the lines intersect. We also go over other tips like to avoid awkward angles or precarious object placements, and don’t place the objects all “facing” in the same direction. And don’t put the objects too far apart! It does seem a little bit of a Goldilocks situation - not too far, not too close, just right.

Still Life in Charcoal

While I was searching for objects for my still life composition, I noticed a discrepancy between the actual objects in my life and the objects I would want to put into a still life painting. The class gave some suggestions like fruits and vegetables, toys, and vases. I’m thinking I want fun objects - things that would be fun to paint and fun to look at.

Then funnily enough, it turns out, I didn’t really have any of those objects on hand for this first assignment. So I did find an empty wine bottle, which I shamelessly dug out of the recycling bin, an LA Chargers football helmet from the LA fair, my sketchbook, my copy of The Art Spirit by Robert Henri that I haven’t read yet, and a head of garlic from the pantry.

This whole experience reminded me of those Instagram versus reality posts. The difference between what sells, what people want to look at, and what really exists. When I think about old school still life paintings like this Dutch still life, I wonder if that painting was aspirational or reality. Did people’s tables back in the day really look like that? Or is that the food they wish they were able to eat regularly? Did they buy the objects in the painting specifically for the painting? And then, what does it mean if there is a large gap between reality and aspiration?

Random: I happened to stumble upon this fun and informative article on the history of fish in still life. I really liked the paintings featured in the article and it’s giving me some inspiration for future works.

Something else I learned: to clean the blending stumps, use sandpaper. I basically scrape the dirty parts of the stump on the sandpaper and fashion the tip into a point.

Now, to start on the charcoal drawing, first we make a ground using the jumbo willow charcoal. Next sketch in the objects, subtract highlights, and add in darker values.

completed still life charcoal drawing featuring a football helmet, two books, an empty wine bottle, and garlic — Final version of my still life in charcoal

Primary Palette Still Life

First, we want to prepare the canvases by applying a neutral grey background. To make neutral grey I followed the recipe in this post by Francisco Silva using Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, and Titanium White. Then starting on painting the objects by working dark to light, ending with highlights.

The three still life paintings this week are all alla prima paintings. “Alla prima” is Italian for “at first attempt” and is a painting technique where layers of wet paint are laid down on top of previously applied layers of wet paint (source). We are also using a limited palette of three primary colors to make any additional colors needed.

Primary Palette Still Life with Two Additional Colors

This is the same assignment as the other primary palette one except with adding two more colors. I also tried to pick objects that were a bit more colorful so they would be more fun to paint.

Still Life from Photo

This assignment is basically the same as the first still life charcoal one except this time we are using a source photo instead of real objects. I specifically chose this source photo with the glasses of water in order to practice reflections since reflections were something I struggled with in week two.

final drawing of still life from photo in charcoal; the drawing features two water glasses and two eggs clustered together — The final charcoal drawing

Primary Palette Still Life with Another Two Additional Colors

This is the third alla prima painting and the final assignment of the week. I tried to pick objects that would be fun to paint. I really enjoyed painting the little pink top on the succulent and the peacock Christmas ornament.