Fundamentals of Drawing Still Life

The copper pan had both reflectiveness and solidity and I decided that I would like to look into it, so it required support from behind with a stool or box so that I could see the shinier interior. The round shape also was a good, large form to place behind other things. The wickerwork hamper was a nice straightforward shape, but its texture was harder to draw. I made some studies of the way that the pieces of wickerwork were interwoven, especially round the edges and the handle.

KNOW YOUR OBJECTS The bowl of oranges and lemons and the apples basically called for the same treatment. I drew them rapidly with unbroken lines until I had got the feel of their shapes and how they lay against each other.

I drew the tall white jug with its edge pattern from different angles until I had decided which angle suited my composition best. A ROUGH COMPOSITION With everything else resolved, I had to put together my final idea for the composition of my picture. Here I have drawn a very rough composition of the arrangement of all these different objects that I decided I liked best of all. I settled upon the angle of the light and what sort of background the composition should have.

Here, I have the light coming from the left, fairly low and casting a shadow on some of the objects on the side wall. Behind the main part of the composition is the darkness of the room behind, so the arrangement is well lit but against a dark space. I covered the side table with the cloth but allowed the jug and bowl of fruit to rumple it up a little. The heavy dark pot and the spiky plant are at the base of the foreground. The hamper and the large copper pan act like a backdrop on the left-hand side. OUTLINE DRAWING

Having decided on my arrangement and made a fairly quick sketch of it, I now knew what I was going to do. The first thing I needed to establish was the relative positions and shapes of all the articles in the picture, so I made a very careful line drawing of the whole arrangement, with much correcting and erasing to get the accuracy I wished to convey in the final picture. You could of course use a looser kind of drawing, but for this exercise I was being very precise in getting all the shapes right and their dispositions carefully related. This is your key drawing which everything depends on, so take your time to get it right. Each time you correct your mistakes you are learning a valuable lesson about drawing. BLOCK IN THE TONE

After that I blocked in all the areas of the main shadow. Do not differentiate between very dark and lighter tones at this stage; just get everything that is in some sort of shadow covered with a simple, even tone. Once you have done this you will have to use a sheet of paper to rest your hand on to make sure you do not smudge this basic layer of tone. Take care to leave white all areas that reflect the light. THE COMPLETED PICTURE

Finally, I did the careful working up of all the areas of tone so that they began to show all the gradations of light and shade. I made sure that the dark, spacious background was the darkest area, with the large pan, the glass jug and the fruit looming up in front it. The cast shadows of the plant and where the cloth drapes were put in crisply and the cast shadow of the jug on the side wall required some subtle drawing. Before I considered my drawing finished, I made sure that all the lights and darks in the picture balanced out naturally so that the three-dimensional aspects of the picture were clearly shown. This produced a satisfying, well- structured arrangement of shapes with the highlights bouncing brightly off the surfaces.

INDEX advertising, illustrations for 160 animals, dead 80, 170 apertures, looking through 112–13 art, examples from 136–43 atmosphere 79, 118 backgrounds 175, 189, 206 bicycle 39 bones 52, 177 books and paper 94–5 bottles 23, 25 brushes 10, 11, 131 brush and wash 31, 34–5, 130–1, 138 car 122 carbon pencils 10–11 Cézanne, Paul 143 chairs 27, 38, 106 chalk 10, 11, 30, 31, 132–3, 140–1 charcoal 10, 11 Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon 70, 85, 104 circles 12 cloth 198 composition 82–109 apparent disorder 150–1 choosing 201 unusual arrangements 106–9, 146–7, 156–79 Conté 10 contrast of texture 32, 38, 56–7, 80–1 of tones 32, 50 Craig-Martin, Michael 164–5 cubes 14 cubism 179 cup 30 cylinders 17

Dali, Salvador 99, 161 depth 70, 71, 148 ellipses, drawing 16–19, 22 erasers 11 everyday objects 152–3, 162–3 eye: leading in to picture 147, 193 Fantin-Latour, Henri 105, 141 fixing 133, 141 flowers 57, 66–7, 104–5, 140 food 58–9 food and drink 84–91 footwear 78, 168–9 ‘framing’ (space around subject) 72–3 fruit 28, 66, 130, 158–9, 177, 200 and vegetables 175 furniture 106 glass 16, 22–3, 25, 31, 48–9, 171, 198 gouache 35 graphite pencils 10, 11 groups of objects 36–7, 62–81 combining 60–7, 194–5 drawing objects separately 198–9 encompassed groups 66–7 how many objects? 146–7 Guttoso, Renato 86 Hamen y Leon, Juan Van der 88–9 hatching 127, 129, 132 highlights 35, 132, 133, 204, 206 Hodgkin, Eliot 87, 90 interiors looking into 120–1 sense of space 112–13, 116 suggesting outside world 115, 118–20 key drawing 202–3 lamps 38, 50

leaves 57 Leonardo da Vinci 127, 137 lighting 106 artificial 74–7 choosing 188–9 direction of 15, 29, 50, 74–7, 201 effect of 78–9 lines: exercises 12–13 loose-line technique 126, 128 Magini, Carlo 84 Magritte, René 179 materials drawing materials 10–11, 126–35 mixing subject materials 80–1 Matisse, Henri 91, 138 measurements of objects 23 of picture 70–1 media choosing and using 30–1, 102–3 mixed 134–5, 142–3 Meléndez, Luiz 87 metal 33, 34–5, 50–1, 199 Miró, Joan 109 Morandi, Giorgio 100–1, 165 movement, suggesting 99, 119 musical objects 93, 95 negative shapes 68–9 outdoor subjects 114, 117, 122–3 outlines, drawing 49, 127, 202 paper 11 applying torn paper 134–5 as subject 46–7, 94–5 tinted 132, 133 pastel 10, 11, 132–3 patterns 91, 109 pencil 30, 102, 136 techniques 126–7 types of pencils 10

exercises 20 pen and ink 137 pens 10, 11, 128 techniques 30, 31, 128–9 exercises 20 perspective 26–7 plants 128, 198 portraits from objects 176 proportions 23 rectangular objects 26–7 reflections 24, 28, 29, 32, 33, 50, 122 Rivera, Diego 136 Roesen, Severin 139 Rome, ancient 160, 167 Rousseau, Henri 140 saucepan 34–5 sea-related objects 78, 96–7, 123 settings, choosing 186–7 shading 14, 21, 127 exercises 21 shadows 15, 26, 38, 74–5, 131, 206 shapes, unusual 32–9 shells 53 sketches, initial 201 snow 166 space creating sense of 112–13, 116 suggesting larger spaces 114–17, 122 spherical objects 15, 28–9 stones 54 stump 11, 127 style, individual 164–5 subjects selecting 182–3, 190–1 unusual 108, 166–71 surrealism 179 symbolism 98–9 table settings 172–3 tactile subjects 154–5

techniques 124–35 examples from art 136–43 textiles 42–5 texture 42–5, 51 contrasting 32, 38, 56–7, 80–1 solid objects 24–5 themes 82–109 three-dimensional objects: exercises 14–15 tone 14–15, 49, 131 balancing 206 blocking in 204–5 contrast of 32, 50 three-dimensional images 14, 15, 17 exercises 20–1 tools 36–7 toys 56, 107 travel equipment 92 trompe l’oeil 71, 148, 178 unusual, the arrangements 156–79 shapes 32–9 Van Gogh, Vincent 142, 168 vases 24, 29, 56 vegetables and fruit 175 viewpoint 118, 192–3, 196–7, 200 Wadsworth, Edward 97 wash and brush 31, 34–5, 130–1, 138 watercolour 103 whites 132, 204 wickerwork 27, 38, 182 wood 55 Wyeth, Andrew 79, 119–20

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