I was asked to review the last two exercises which was good for me as I learned a lot about what I struggled with mainly.
First of all what I was successful with and what I found problematic. I realised that drawing in line was for me much easier and I was able to get a decent amount of depth in the drawing, but I realised that I was struggling to depict satisfactory surface textures with things like fruit and veg.
At this point I decided to take a step backwards and start to churn out a pile of drawings just on the observation of the surfaces and try to would out a system to depict believable textures like orange skin, pomegranates, cabbages etc, first in graphite, then using the same technique I was able to apply it to coloured pencil as well. This was a valuable achievement for me and I feel I can take these techniques and apply them to other mediums in further exercises.
Lighting and the use of positive and negative spaces was the most important factor for creating depth. Using shadows and the background to set tones in contrast was helpful, but also seeing a lack of it in ex 1 made me realise how much the composition and lighting can affect to overall balance of the still life.;
I used colour in a similar way to graphite, but I had to ponder and plan a lot more with the colour as I had to factor in changes in tone and identifying which colours to correspond with what I was seeing. This would explain my apprehension when using the coloured pencils I guess as I wasn’t too confident with how they were going to layer or mix.
It was good that I identified my weaknesses and spent a bit of time researching and practising until I was happy enough to continue as I have seen a huge improvement in my drawings and am feeling much more comfortable and confident with it.
Eeyanski Arts 