Looking back at the drawings from yesterday, I was trying to work out which one to pick for the blog and then it struck me that I could pick all of them:

We started with a ten minute sketch of a still life scene and then repeated the exercise but this time standing up. You can see how the ellipses at the top of the various jugs, jars and vases open up. Then, after further instruction, we did the same thing but sketching in horizontal and vertical guides to help gauge the relationship of the different shapes (about 12 minutes apiece). Finally, we did a blind contour drawing of the scene and then a blind drawing from memory.

Of the four pencil drawings, I think the last one was most successful although at the time it felt most awkward to create. I wanted to be sitting down to carefully measure things out but I like the resulting energy from what is a curious mixture of more resolved shading and a number of blatantly incomplete shapes.

I am also pleased with the two blind drawings (strong lines from drawing with a marker pen). The first compresses the objects into the space by overlapping them so I get the tops and the bottoms. In the observed drawings, I didn’t manage to fit all of that onto the page. The second has an asymmetrical arrangement of filled and empty areas but I rather like the way this provides balance through contrast. Either could have been worked up into a painting but I’ll save the paintings I did for a future post.