Category: Basic Forms and Shapes

Contour Drawing of a Still-Life

A still-life of many objects, including (from left to right) a gourd, a vase, a ball, a smaller gourd in the background, and a large pumpkin that is partially visible on the side of the image.

This drawing highlights the complexity of objects through the use of contour lines, marks, and shadows. The use of contour lines and values is important to differentiate the objects from one another, despite similar coloring on a few of the objects (including the pumpkin and gourd). To create this drawing, I outlined the basic shapes of the still-life with vine charcoal and then proceeded to add some dimension and form to create a 3-D effect. After the object were all correctly placed and shaped, I continued using vine charcoal to add details in the form of contour marks and shadows on and around the objects. The drawing uses elements of basic shapes and forms, as well as contour and value.

Drawing: Still Life

In this art piece I was assigned to draw the still life in front of me during class. Still life in my own words is different forms of life (objects) that is placed in a certain position with a source of light reflect off of it. In this piece I highlighted the different detects of light throughout each object. In this piece there is a cylinder object, a bottle, blocks, a circular ball, and a seashell. I used back shapes, and a biasic outline to create the physical form of each object. Then I used charcoal (2B), white Conte crayon, and vinyl charcoal to highlight the different levels of light being bounce of each object. This is why some objects are darker and lighter in certain spots. Materials: - Vinyl Charcoal - White Conte Crayon - Napkin ( smudging) - Drawing Paper Pad - White Charcoal - Vinyl Charcoal - Charcoal (2B)
In this art piece I was assigned to draw the still life in front of me during class. Still life in my own words is different forms of life (objects) that is placed in a certain position with a source of light reflect off of it. In this piece I highlighted the different detects of light throughout each object. In this piece there is a cylinder object, a bottle, blocks, a circular ball, and a seashell. I used back shapes, and a basic outline to create the physical form of each object. Then I used charcoal (2B), white Conte crayon, and vinyl charcoal to highlight the different levels of light being bounce of each object. This is why some objects are darker and lighter in certain spots.
Materials:
Vinyl Charcoal
White Conte Crayon
Napkin ( smudging)
Drawing Paper Pad
White Charcoal
Vinyl Charcoal
Charcoal (2B)

Hands on my Feet

This artwork is not a still life but rather pictures of hands and feet most of which mine that I have drawn. I covered the details in my hands ranging from any cuts, scars or knuckles all the way to simple wrinkles and even fingerprints in some cases. In each drawing on a hand or foot I made sure they are always in different positions when drawn so it doesn’t get repetitive.

Lunchbox Contours and Cross Hatching

I drew the same object three different times in this picture. In the top left corner of the page is a contour drawing of my lunch box, to the right of that is a cross contour, and under both is a cross hatching. The lunchbox itself is divided into two rectangular prisms, both the same width but one with a shorter height than the first. The lunchbox is lying at an angle in the drawings with its black handle pointing down and to the left. In the contour drawing, one can see the designs on top of the lunchbox, including a darkened curve on the left side of the top prism. A zipper lines the top of the prism underneath. Crinkles can be seen all along the lunchbox in the form of shadows. In the cross contour, these crinkles are seen as three dimensional waves in a two dimensional grid; however one notices that the bottom prism is mostly flat on each face. In the cross hatching, these waves are still visible, but appear more like shadows on the lunchbox. Nothing on this drawing was colored in based on local values.

These three pictures of my lunchbox are some of the best contours and cross hatching I’ve done for class so far.

For the contour drawing in the top left corner, I began by drawing the lunchbox without lifting my pencil. I don’t remember using any under drawings for this one. For the other two, however, I believe I did begin by drawing two rectangular prisms stacked on top of one another.

The cross contour drawing was the most difficult for me because it was hard to visualize the dips and rises in the fabric on a grid. If I were to draw this over again, I might spend a bit more time on the cross contour to make sure I have the topography correct.

“Bottles” Value Still Life

The objects in this drawing were all different colors and had different degrees of sheen, all sitting on a white table cloth. From the left, half of a matte white wine bottle can be seen with a small styrofoam ball sitting at the bottom right corner of the bottle. The ball casts a slightly longer, dark shadow onto the table cloth to the right. Behind the shadow is a glass bottle about the same height of the wine bottle. It casts a somewhat transparent shadow to its right that just begins to touch the base of a dark bocce ball. The objects in front of the bocce ball cast shadows on its left side, although there is still a cast shadow extending from the base of the ball to the left. A small, cylindrical shiny metal container and cone shaped lid rest between the glass bottle and the bocce ball. There is a small looped handle on top of the lid. The edge nearly touches the shadow cast from the small styrofoam ball on the left of the page. The container casts its own shadow to the right. Behind the bocce ball sits a white milk carton, the shape of a rectangular prism. The glass bottle casts a shadow on the left side of the carton that looks like hardly anything more than an outline. A decorative, cylindrical vase is placed behind both the carton and the bottle. It's left side is bright while it's right side is dark, with a gradient of shadow in between. Indents on the vase have their own shadows and highlights. The base of the cylinder becomes like a curved stand, and the vase curves inward before curving back out again with the base extending behind the glass bottle and the milk carton. Part of the base of the vase can be seen as a refracted image in the bottle. In the background, there are a few white desks with black table rims and legs, along with a grey chair.

I used vine charcoal to draw this picture and started by creating margins on my paper and marking the halfway and quarter way points along the edges. I used these marks to match up my drawing with what I saw using my viewfinder.

I began by mapping out and correcting the general shapes and positions of the objects with several gesture drawings, then I filled in the values of the positive space before moving on to the negative space and background.

It took me a while to draw this picture, although there are still details I missed; for example, the glass bottles had ridges on the top just below the neck that refracted the background image in interesting ways. Given more time, I would include more details like this.

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