Once again I got so interested in what everybody was doing that I forgot to take a picture of the still life set up. But you recognize these pots from previous posts. So do the students, having faced them innumerable times before. Are they complaining? No, because it’s not about the crockery. It’s about what happens on the drawing paper.
So many choices. What to draw, what to leave out. What to relate to what. How to move the eye through the page.
Notice that the grouping at (1) relates in value to (4) and therefore your eye moves diagonally across the page.
The lines of the drapery converge at (3). But right at that point of convergence the charcoal has been lifted to keep that spot from dominating the page.
And what about that huge pot, (2)? No shading, no detail, no reflection, no roundness. We don’t need any of that. We know exactly what it is. Une éminence grise, ha. It becomes important precisely because it doesn’t shout.
I love a witty still life.
Drawing by Maggy Shell, charcoal, ~14”x18”
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 