Still Life - man made and natural objects

 1. To obtain an impression of three dimensions on either manmade or natural objects I would say there is a need to be mindful of following the direction of the curve when rendering an object with hatching. This is what I tried to do with many of them. Perspective comes into play more so I think, on made objects. Largely because I found on those I drew in previous exercises, errors I made became more obvious when the hatching wasn’t adequately curved around the sides of the object. This also tended to result in a flatter appearance. Ellipses and cubes on man made objects presented me with some difficulty, as I found that if these aren’t exact, the result isn't convincing – I’m not too happy with the ones here, so it’s something I definitely need lots of practice with. Conversely I found the natural forms were easier in this regard, as being freeforms, more leeway is allowed before mistakes show up. In the foreground of the apples, foreshortening and perspective became noticeable to me in the leaf, which I found to be a bit of a challenge. It did seem to add further to the sense of depth, but I had to make a couple of attempts at this before I felt it looked convincing.

2. Because the man made objects I chose for the sketches were all reflective and mostly transparent, particularly the glass bottles, I found these presented me with more difficulty when attempting to convey solidity than with the two apples in the next exercise. Reflected light and shadow was bouncing around in all directions between the glass objects adding to their more transparent appearance. The ceramic jug was less of a challenge, being opaque, though still reflective.  If they had matt surfaces and were more opaque (as with the apples I chose for the drawing of natural forms) I think obtaining a sense of solidity would have been a simpler task, as the tonal values would be less complex. Yet, the leaves didn’t look as solid as the other objects, maybe because they are not solid objects in reality, so the perception of solidity isn't there to begin with. For the same reason, I think if the man made objects were non-reflective they would appear more solid.

3. I moved the objects around in both arrangements, sketching out various combinations, until I was happy  that there was an adequate balance and depth in them. With the natural forms group I moved the apple with four leaves at least four times before I decided that I had the most balanced arrangement. Using methods such as including more than two objects helping to give a feeling of unity, and overlapping so that some objects were further away, helped I think to give the illusion of form and depth. Changing the viewpoint of the man made objects, gave them a much more three dimensional look when I viewed them from a high position, rather than when they were placed at, or almost at eye level. This high viewpoint transformed their shapes so that they became more elliptical and cylindrical, giving more form to their appearance. On the other hand I found them more difficult to sketch from this angle, as I had to deal with drawing ellipses and some foreshortening, presenting more of a challenge and a source of frustration at times when things began to look distorted, particularly around the jug tops. Although the cast shadows they produced helped to ground the objects, adding I think, to their sense of solidity.

Additional Note: When I took a closer look at the negative spaces in sketches 3 and 4 a few weeks later, I noted  a few points of interest:
I think the negative spaces in no.3 are more balanced and interesting than those in no.4, especially those caused by the cast shadows - this was something I ignored at the time. A pattern is produced by the cast shadows in no.3, whereas this is almost non existent in no.4, which I think would be improved it they were more broken up in the centre of the arrangement.

4. To obtain all of the above elements I decided the best position was to place myself well above the man made objects and slightly above the natural forms. The former (bottles and jug), which although it was an interesting angle to draw from, also proved to be quite uncomfortable before long, as I was looking down to a much greater extent.          

Finished drawing  of natural forms - pencil

Reflected Light

1. During the exercises I squinted a lot to help simplify the area's tonal values. Despite this I still had trouble with the base of the mortar and pestle and the surrounding area, as it was very dark so I couldn’t really see much variation between where the reflected light from the supporting surface ended and where the cast shadow began. As a result it isn’t as rounded as I would have liked. Its surface is shiny, but much less so than on the stainless steel pan with the glass lid. Reflected light and shadow and cast shadows were easier to make out around the shinier objects – it produced a dappled effect upon the surface of the objects and to some extent, those they were resting on, although this made them quite complex. The light and shade was also bouncing from one surface onto another and back again, including I think, cast shadows. I was confused as to whether there was cast shadow on the surfaces of the objects - unless this was actually reflected shadow bouncing up off the cast shadow below. The effect was the same on both objects in the second exercise as they are also very shiny stainless steel, so more light and shade was bouncing around here.
All this resulted in a distinct (rather than gradual) separation between the darkest area of cast shadow nearer the objects, and the outer areas. I think this effect could have been at least partly due to some reflected light from the shiny objects onto the lighter areas of shadow.


2. The alternating values on the stainless steel objects in particular, produced an interesting pattern of light and shade on the surface.
For the mortar, pestle and stainless steel pan I lightly added the outlines with an F pencil and for the shading - 2B and 4B pencils. I tried to follow the round curving shape of the two objects using various weights of line, depending on the depth of tone. I don’t think that I curved the lines adequately towards some of the sides, for instance on the pan – they are a bit too horizontal looking, adversely affecting it’s form. It was difficult to do any obvious hatching on some areas like the handle on the right of the pan, but I  tried to follow the curves. I think that the many areas of reflected light and shade on the body of the objects have too hard a division between them. I’m not sure how I could correct this in future – we’ll see!
Note: I later rounded the ellipses more at the base of both objects in the two drawings - the first below and also the coffee pot and sugar bowl further down. The improvement is evident and they appear much more natural now, but I would say the ellipses should be deeper than  those at the top of the objects as the angle is sharper from those viewpoints. Then again, since I  made the changes the initial ellipses look extremely flat in comparison. 

Before

After curving the ellipses more on the base of both articles

The medium used for the coffee pot and sugar bowl was willow charcoal in various thicknesses. The areas of reflected light and shade seemed to follow a straight vertical pattern around the upper two thirds of the sides, as they also followed the length of the handles and coffee pot’s spout, so I tried to emulate this in the direction of my rendering of them. With the later addition of some random short horizontal  flicks of charcoal I tried to balance the contrasting effects on neighbouring areas. Some of them were again too horizontal where they should have curved more around the sides. On the lower third of the objects and the inside surface of the sugar bowl the surfaces were angled inwards and this suggested to me the use of a fairly horizontal treatment from the start, following the curvature of both objects. The same went for the lids, although it was more obvious on the underside of the sugar bowl’s open lid. I had difficulty using the charcoal in a way which seemed to demand a more controlled approach, but I enjoyed the challenge.

Before

After

Tone and Form

Observing Shadow and Light Formations on a Surface
In the first exercise the primary light source was a lamp on the right hand side.
As much as I squinted my eyes to blank out unnecessary detail I was a little confused about the light source in some areas.
As far as I could make out there was a lighter area on the top left of both objects but I wasn’t sure whether it came from the primary source or from another lamp which was illuminating my drawing surface.
I couldn’t distinguish much reflected light bouncing up from the surface even though it was almost white, apart from the lower right hand side – the opposite side to the shadows.
The cast shadow on the left of the objects appeared (confusingly) to be lighter quite close to the objects and darker further away. I was guessing this may have been due some light from the second lamp. I’m not sure also if the transition ought to have been more gradual between the lightest and adjacent areas.

For the second exercise I found things a little easier, I think partly because there was only one object for each study, so the light and shadow wasn’t as interrupted as in the first exercise, also I was generally more aware of what to look out for. It was trickier to separate the tonal ranges in objects without a uniform colour range, such as the plain plastic cube I used for the tonal drawing with a dip pen. I guess I could have said the same about the natural objects in the previous exercise.

These exercises have forced me to re-evaluate my approach to value/tonal drawing – whereas previously it was more simplified i.e. I looked at only light/middle and dark tones, with maybe a couple of tones in between. The difference now is that I'm more sensitive to subtle nuances in light and shade and where they should usually be placed on and around the object/s such as: cast shadow and their make up and reflected light from other surfaces and how much more three dimensional they become once tone is added. Hopefully my future work will begin bear out this assertion. 

Final drawing