Lesson Info
6. Your Drawing Process
Lessons
Lesson Info
Your Drawing Process
So I have a still life drawing challenge for you. Sometimes when you get prompted, there's a challenge, it helps you motivate to draw more and draw more often. So I want to show you a little something that I've been working on and maybe it'll be inspiring for you to try something similar at home or even really anywhere that you have objects arranged in space where you might be able to draw them. So what I've been doing recently is I've been focusing on the counter space to the left of my stove. And, (chuckle) you might think well what's so inspiring about that. I actually think it's really fascinating to just track a particular area on a daily basis and sort of see how the objects in that area organically get placed or messed up and cleaned up, it's almost like a diary of your experience of that space. For me, my kitchen is a constant struggle to keep it clean and so rather than getting frustrated by things being chaotic I finally said, you know what, I'm just gonna draw it. And actual...
ly now it's sort of amusing to kind of work with that and I'm appreciating the variations a little bit more. So what I've done is over a series of four days, and I'm gonna keep this going, I started to, just on small sketch paper and graphite which is something we used in this course I started to just sketch the olive oil bottle and the pot on the stove. Here, the way that these little spatulas are resting on this cutting board. In this one on another day there was a lemon, light coming off the stove from the right. Actually the light in all of them is pretty consistently from the right side. And then here my coffee travel container is up front. So I just think that looking at the differences and looking at the arrangements really starts to connect you to things maybe that you didn't normally pay attention to. And through drawing that's a really rich process. So my challenge is, why not do a series of drawings where you're tracking a particular location in your house, or your apartment, or your office. Make it easy for yourself, like if you work in an office setting get a little sketchbook and a pencil, keep in open on your desk. And maybe during your lunch break you can, no matter what the configuration on your desk is, how many messy papers or how full your coffee cup is, you're gonna take like five or 10 minutes and just do a sketch. And maybe give yourself a week, or two weeks, or 10 days or whatever it might be. But over time, by creating a series, you start to see the relationships and the interactions between the drawings. And how these objects change over time. You can absolutely, if you feel up to it, and I'd love it if you would, cause I'd love to see what you're doing, post some images to our student gallery and we would really just love to see your work and maybe even comment on it or like it. I would encourage you to just keep drawing, notice the world around you, notice the things that maybe didn't seem that inspiring like, lets say, the counter in your bathroom. Over time you might just sort of get captivated by it like whoa, that could be a really cool drawing subject. So work with these ideas of composition, arrangement, lighting. You know, really anything can be a still life. And I think over time the subject matter will get richer and more magical and your drawings will strengthen over time.
Ratings and Reviews
Gina Nieto
Great class. Thank you Amy for your insight. The section on value was one of the best I've come upon. Now to start my challenge.
Student Work
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