Still Life Drawing :
Still Life - Drawing Charcoal on Paper August 20th 2021 The making of a still life drawing is a really new concept to me as I had never really tried doing such things with charcoal before or at all. At first, I was not really excited but the more I went into it, I got a better feeling about the project. The main point was to take an object given to me, and basically use thin and thick charcoal to make a detailed drawing based off the objects position seen. My object was what looked like a pheasant with many feathers around its body and feathers that were around the head as if the bird had hair. While taking a look around the pheasant, I was very pleased with its overall design and I really thought it looked very nice, I believe that gave me more inspiration to try my hardest at the drawing. Overall, the project was a very nice way to ease back into making such art pieces after this long quarantine period at my home. |
At first, with the charcoal, I spread out a shadowed layer spreading the whole piece of paper. Within the start of projecting the bird, given thin charcoal, I made sure to get an outline of the birds main body and the tail it has. I wanted to lay out where certain places its body has differences in, and make sure I had a good body structure from how I saw the pheasant. After that, I just wanted to start out going detail through detail of the pheasants feathers, the patch close to its behind and its stomach. Within that, I outlined the feathers around the head. The tail was the hardest part to decide on as there was many parts and details into specific area, which is where it got more overwhelming. With the feathers, they went more and more messy. |
The next thing I had done to the project was adding in the detail and the shading of the object. When I was doing this its where I most struggled with what I was working with. Given a more thick charcoal, I was able to make darker lines. Before I could work with that, I finished the feathers on the birds body, but I needed more detail into the parts that differed than the feathers. The tail was a huge part I felt I needed darker lines to, and that was where I started making minor details into bigger ones. I laid out how the feathers were seen and the points of each of the feathers of the tail. Within the structure of the tail and feathers there were also black lines through the hair feathers and the tail feathers. The most I focused on was showing detail to the body parts. The shading was close to the neck as it had been covered by the hair feathers, and the lower body. To show that I used the dark charcoal to give a darker color, but on the lower body you still could see the feathers on the bird. Using the thick charcoal I made darker lines to show the feathers on the body with the shaded part. |
Reflection
Overall, I have a more up and down feeling about the still life drawing I had done. Part of me likes how I worked with my first time doing such a thing, but another part is thinking I could have done better in some parts. When working on the project, I rushed through some bits of the process and that led to many lines and many places where there is way too much going on. When working on the tail, I had quickly tried to lay out the different pieces of the tail, but that just led to what looks confusing about the bird. I also think I had done way to much darkening onto the bird closer to the end of the project, with this much detail, I left out important parts of the project that bring out the characteristics of the pheasant. If I had taken more time in doing some of these things, the final product could have looked more specific and intricate, instead of messy lines and shading. On the positive part of the project, as being my first time doing and working with these are materials, I think I did a pretty good job at laying out the process. Giving myself an outline of the pheasant was a good way of showing me where things are and where they go. Also, I worked well with the overall shading of the bird and where the placement of the shading goes.
Taking in what I have learned from all of this, it tells me to take my time with these projects and instead of trying to do the most I can. instead work on outlining a more precise way of doing so in the future. This is very helpful as it gives me more advice for the future whether I am designing a character or doing something else, I must take my time in doing something so detailed. It also showed me how art is going to work within giving a smaller deadline and smaller time to do such things. Even with the mistakes I feel I made on the still life drawing, I feel accomplished with what I have done, and ready to work on more this year.
Taking in what I have learned from all of this, it tells me to take my time with these projects and instead of trying to do the most I can. instead work on outlining a more precise way of doing so in the future. This is very helpful as it gives me more advice for the future whether I am designing a character or doing something else, I must take my time in doing something so detailed. It also showed me how art is going to work within giving a smaller deadline and smaller time to do such things. Even with the mistakes I feel I made on the still life drawing, I feel accomplished with what I have done, and ready to work on more this year.