Reflective Surfaces

This is a study of reflective surfaces drawn in a 45 minute period after 15 minutes of planning. Whilst the image does show reflection of the room in the tall vase, and the reflection of light on the object in front of it, I think it could have been shown more effectively by using stronger highlights that contrast with the darker values. The clear glass jars containing water aren't clearly rendered as glass as I found dealing with the refraction of light and the objects in the water difficult to deal with. As a result, the front jar lacks contrast and could be improved by paying more attention to smaller details around this area. 


The area behind the objects is very heavily shaded, I feel that this draws attention away from the main subjects of the image as they blend in with it too much. As this image was drawn using a 5B pencil, I think it might have been too soft for this type of study; the pencil smudged too easily under my hand whilst working on other areas of the image, making it hard to maintain lighter values on the page, and also creating areas in other places which were too dark. A slightly harder pencil such as a 2B might have been better to use.

Still Life

This is a 30 minute, plus 5 minute planning, still life study of a vase of flowers drawn with a 4B pencil. I positioned the study off-centre on the page as this created a more interesting composition. I chose a vantage point where the flower at the front of the vase was clearly visible, and where I wasn't directly sat in front of one edge of the table, as this made for a more interesting composition that shows some depth. A sense of depth is also created by the shading in the area behind the flowers. I used a range of values to show the areas of light and shadow to express the form of the objects and add to the sense of depth.                 

As time was restrictive when drawing this piece, the flowers in the vase are not accurately drawn, however I feel that their basic form and placement are still successfully and clearly portrayed by the quickly drawn, simple lines. I still need to focus on perspective when drawing pieces like this in future as I am not happy with the top of the table; I think that the far right corner of the table is too high behind the vase and needs to be lowered. This would also push the back edge of the table into a nicer angle.

Light and Shadow

These are a series of pencil studies, ranging from 10 minutes to 40 minutes, of a stool covered with a piece of material. For each one, I tried to pick an interesting vantage point and work quickly to show as much detail as possible.  I think my quicker studies were more successful; I drew the 40 minute study to a larger scale due the less restricting time limit but this turned out to be unsuccessful as it meant the whole image would not fit on the page, for this reason, the composition of my quicker studies turned out to be more interesting.

For each study, I successfully used a range of values to show light and depth, this is most successful in the 40 minute study as the greater time allowance meant I had longer to express the value range and show more detail in the folds of the material.