Still Life: This Time, It's for Real

Midway through

The End!

1.  Describe the craftsmanship of your drawing.  (Is it clear, clean edges, blended well, smudges, defined space, etc.)

         I think my sense of space was very off, but I think that the picture looks generally how I would like it to look. It looks like how I like my charcoal drawings to look.  Sort of faded, almost, and a little blended, but with enough definition so that people can tell what they're looking at.

2.  Are your values and shadows realistic?  How many values did you include?  How and why are values important?

        I hope my shadows and values are realistic.  I put a lot of effort into them, and tried to include all nine.  I know I have a problem with drawing too darkly in some areas, but I think that everything eventually turned out well, especially after I had help.  I'm especially proud of the two flowers.  I think that if I could have colored the whole piece the way I shaded the roses, it would have looked a lot better.  

        Values are important because without them, it would be very difficult for the viewer to understand what they were looking at.  

3.  Is there a clear source of lighting?  

      Hmmm, I think so?  I think there might be two, actually.  Because we were using the stage lights. So there would be one light in the upper right hand corner, and another in the upper left.  I think the strongest would be in the upper right, at least, that was where it was supposed to be?  With the main highlight hitting on that large swoop of fabric.  I think I accomplished that.  

4.  How important were the compositional sketches?  Explain.  

         I don't know how important they were.  Yes, they were useful in order to be able to get different perspectives of the still life, but at the same time, I don't know how much they did for me.  I could have just gone around and looked at the still life on my own.  The rough, small sketches didn't provide a suitable basis for me to plan my drawing around.  It was a good start, but I needed to do a compositional sketch larger to be able to comprehend what I was drawing. 

5.  How is your final drawing successful?  

        I think that it is mostly successful on the two sides. The values are pretty good, I think, as are some of the objects and the shadows.  Especially the shadow of the rose.  I was really proud of that one.  I don't really like the rest of the drawing though, because I felt like I could have done better, but at the same time I was just hating the project so much while I was doing it. 

6.  Are the proportions, structure, and perspective of the subject correct?

      No. They are not.  I had to draw the picture, then take it back to my table to color it in charcoal, because I just can't do that at a drawing board, and that was probably also a lot of the problem. Also, I was really afraid to make the angel big, which really disrupted the picture.  And, I started to draw one section and then I realized how out of proportion I was being so I had to fill up the rest of the page with more out of proportion stuff.  So, just looking at the drawing everything might look alright, but if you were to compare it to the still life you would greatly disagree. 

7.  Does the placement and grouping of objects create a pleasing arrangement (composition)?  

      I think it does, but that's also very subjective.  It would be a lot more pleasing if I'd actually drawn it proportionally, and if I'd drawn the angel larger, and if I hadn't messed up the fabric.  But, I do think that I chose a good section of the fabric to draw. 

8.  Is there a center of interest and where is it locate? 

        I think the center of interest would be in the lower third, in the middle.  Where the fabric makes a little cave and that coincides with the wing of the angel.  I'm very upset that I messed up the shading there. 

9.  How well did you manage your time and resources throughout the process of creating this drawing? Do you see where you could improve in this area? 

         I did this drawing fairly quickly, but maybe that's a problem.  I should have more patience for the work I do, and not be so frustrated with it.

10.  What challenges did you encounter during this project and how did you overcome them?  

         I encountered many challenges, just with using charcoal.  And my own propensity to shade much more than necessary led to some, um, decreased visibility amongst the subject matter.  I overcame the latter, sort of, but line charcoal will always be really, really annoying.  It's really pretty, though, and I like the results.  

11.  What have you learned during a still life? 

         To pay attention to the relation of things as they correlate to other things, and that space where things aren't is just as important as the spaces were things are.  And, that everything really can be seen as lines.  That's always been difficult for me to understand, but if you, as you sort of have to in a still life, break everything down to its barest components, it's much easier to see.