Still Life Drawing

This is my still life drawing.

I'm not sure how the heck you want me to write this blog post.  I've never seen an example of what a good one is supposed to be.  The idea that I'm supposed to measure up to a super perfect score is intimidating me.  I don't want to mess this up just because I'm new to it.

I'm typically a digital artist, so the only materials I usually contend with are brush settings.  However, this is a drawing on paper, and to cover a full range of value, I've used charcoal, pencils, an eraser, and a white pastel.

Before starting to draw, I created a tonal ground by using charcoal for a light gray.

When I got my objects, I placed them... somehow.  I'm not sure if this arrangement really exemplifies one specific compositional device.  I was really feeling the negative space created between the roller and the tomato.  The tomato's placement is according to the rule of thirds.

I used the graphite crayon (6B pencil) to render out the general shapes and placement of the objects.  To more clearly define the outlines, I traced a contour line as I was looking at the edges of the objects.  The roller itself has slight perspective, with the far end being narrower than the close end, to show how it's being viewed from this angle.  While I do feel that the placement mostly accurate to life, the angle of the roller handle was too much and I hadn't noticed until it was already shaded.

The lightest parts were highlighted with white pastel and the darkest parts with charcoal.  The dark parts would be the shadows (especially under the roller+handle and inside the can) and light parts are where the light hit the objects most intensely.  The can had a very reflective surface, so there were many places where light and dark contrasted. I used the eraser to lighten the value of areas, but not as intensely.  The eraser was also used around the edges of the objects where there weren't shadows, and the light table could be seen instead.

A harder pencil was used for places where the value was in between that of the eraser and that of the soft pencil.  To blend different values together, I used a blending stick.  The blending stick was especially useful for the shadows of the objects.  Because of there being multiple light sources, there were multiple shadows, which overlapped and created places that were darker, lighter, or simply faded into the light color of the table.

Creating this full range of value and being able to blend and contrast the darkest and lightest parts is something I think was successfully done in this drawing.

To create an illusion of three-dimentionality, I drew lines along the surface contour of the objects.  This was especially done around the roller and its handle, but also around the tomato.  This makes the objects pop out more.  However, I feel that I didn't do enough on the tomato, and it still looks rather flat.

Overall this was a good experience, to work with the different materials and bring them together into one complete drawing.