This drawing is jumpin’.
In a River North Café in Chicago I once asked the drummer of a jazz group that had just completed a set, what they call it when they’re really playing well. He said, “We’re jumpin.”
So, this drawing is jumpin.
It has no parts. Just sweeps you up, like a good jazz piece.
You can look at the round forms and recognize the reference to round fruit but at the same time you also see the whole drawing. Ditto for every element in the drawing. Even the ellipse on top of the cup. Behold the swinging ellipse! That’s some jumpin ellipse you got there. But it, too, is a seamless part of this jazzy drawing. I can hardly talk about it, just want to throw myself into this compelling agitation.
Wait a minute, you say, this has parts. Well, yes, of course it has parts but each part is so well integrated into the whole, that I don’t get stuck on any one part. My eye moves through the whole page, over and over. To stay with the music analogy, when you listen to music you don’t hear notes, you hear…music.
We haven’t talked about the knife yet. Notice how in this drawing the part of the knife that’s closer to us is in focus and the part that recedes into the peach’s shadow is vague. Not only is this how we see things in reality, but, in the drawing, if the whole knife were equally outlined (in focus), it would dominate the whole drawing. The still life is not an illustration of one thing. Everything hangs together. It’s jumpin.
I invite you to use this drawing to review what we said about these still life drawings in the past four posts.
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-1/
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-2/
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-3/
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-4/
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
http://www.katherinehilden.com
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 
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