Drawing the Still Life

1. Let's warm up - start with getting comfortable with your view - find a comfortable place at your table - orient our sketch book - portrait - landscape. Now let's do a blind / modified contour line drawing. Pick a good starting point - for your eye and on your paper.

2. Now that we are familiar with our subject in a close observant way, let's take s step back and consider composition. Start with 3 thumbnail sketches. Consider composition - orientation - balance of positive/negative space, range of values - how are you filling the space of the page - what is your focal point or place of importance? How will the the viewer's eye be directed to move through the image?

3. Select final composition.

4. Working on larger drawing paper - with a harder (lighter) graphite pencil to start.

Watch video - start at 1:44. Let's layout the base for the drawing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yve86QqV5fA

Sighting lesson

Checkpoints

composition - positive negative space

proportion / sighting

form accuracy - ellipses, contours, angles

light source - value placement- laying out light and shadows - 2B + 4B pencils

start shading - midtones - shading techniques - beginning layers - contour shading - good time to add protection under hand to prevent smudging - work all over

**eraser is a drawing tool - soften edges, clean or refine edges

refrain from outlining

move onto 4b - lay in some darker values

preserve white of page for brightest highlights

build layers - smooth transitions

clean up - erase smudges, extraneous marks