Another still life question
2yr
@ketamine_dragon
Or rather questions.
- I think the composition looks a bit better than the last time (triangles!). It does look floaty tho' and I feel like the skull is skewing everything somehow...?
- I tried making the area where all types of surfaces meet (skull, steel, fabric etc.) more sharp than the rest of the composition so that the viewer's eye is drawn to that spot. But it looks to me like I've got too focused on the detailes again and it just looks like a mess. Any suggestions how I could approach this better?
- I kind of like what I did with the vase, as in not using the hatching and smudging some values in, but they look dirty. Any tips on using blending stumps? Or maybe since the vase is white I could use background as negative space next time... huh
As a side note, I did try the drawabox lessons on rendering surface but they mostly gave me a headache ^^'. It's like I can't see the shadow patterns. I'm trying a different approach with just fabric for now, where I make a simplified form for it without scribbling out every single crease (or at least that's the explanation I'm gonna use when someone asks me why this or that material looks like hot garbage).
Thanks for going through that WoT ∠( ᐛ 」∠)_
Cheers
Maybe similar to some the other recommendations here, but what I think would improve this drawing overall is working on your values. Almost everything is kinda in a midtone range which makes nothing really stand out as a focal point. I would suggest trying to go way darker with your shadows so that the whites of the page really stand out by contrast. Overall, good job and keep going!
Thank you for the reply!
Yeah, values, my old enemy ^^.
I think I just don't have enough experience with them. I think I just "don't get it" yet as in how to use values the same way you can use let's say lines - where you make them thicker if the things are "closer" on paper or thinner if they are far away (or whatever rules you set for your piece).
Now then, back to work __φ(。。)
@ketamine_dragon Perhaps consider setting up your light source on the still life scene with purpose to maximize your ability to identify a clear differences between the highlight, the half tones in the light family, the core shadow and the reflected light (also part of shadow family) on the different planes of the objects. Traditionally this is done with a single dominant light source positioned such that it is above, in front of and to one side of the objects (sometimes called Rembrandt lighting). This approach gives great insight into form shadows. Try this out in a dark room and aim a single light at objects, and it will become clearer for sure. Ask yourself when looking at each plane of an object whether it need be depicted as highlight, half tone, core shadow or reflected light, and draw accordingly with your decision. If previously you have been drawing still life lit by multiple light sources from different angles which are flooding light on scene, sort of the equivalent of in most photography of fashion models which aim to eliminate shadows on faces for instance, then that makes distinguishing shadows way more frustrating and challenging. I hope that helps.
Thank you, that was informative.
As for "one direction" (hah) light I'll need to figure something out as I don't have environment to have relatively dark area for the still life while keeping my paper lit enough so I can see what I'm doing.
D'you recon if using 2 lights from same direction (one colored the other one let's say 9000K) is too much? The color fills in some of the shadows which makes for a nice effect but it might be distracting.
I had a similar reaction. I really like the piece, and my thought was I'd love to see higher contrast in the composition to bring out a primary and maybe secondary point of interest. Overall the composition reads as a wash of similar grey tones. In my (very limited) study of old masters, I'm amazed at how commonly I see repeated the pattern of using high contrast to describe the main focal point of a piece, with usually secondary contrasting point to lead the viewers eye on a journey. I love the skull - that'd be a good candidate for a focal point!
I got a lot out of this (now old) video on the subject from Chris Legaspi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSJmcUPjIcY
