Tag: Still life

Maris Peer

new potatoes

My sketch of Maris Peer first early potatoes is anthropomorphically compromised because almost every potato has inadvertently ended up with an expression on its face: cheeky, vacant, dim, confused . . .

But they were delicious and in texture – I’d say – exactly at the halfway point on the scale from waxy to floury. We preferred them to some Jerseys we treated ourself to a month or two ago.

fruit

When I set up to draw the orange, lime and the two Pink Ladies, I’d been planning on leaving the background blank but, as has happened before, the random debris in the background proved to be more interesting than my artfully arranged still life.

foot

I’m convincing myself that it is never possible to draw an ankle accurately. Toes are a bit easier: they have definite edges.

Our non-plastic washing up and veg brushes.

Staying Afloat

still life

Explorer Thor Heyerdahl wrote that he used to worry about the deep ocean until he realised that the ocean wasn’t there for him to sink into: it was there to keep him afloat.

Like him, my natural tendency is to default to panic mode and to tense up, assuming that the worst is going to happen, which is a self-fulfilling worry if I’m writing or drawing as I’m not going to do my best work if I’m tense. Like Heyerdahl, I’ve just got to develop a relaxed but unshakeable conviction that I’m going to stay afloat.

Still Life

sketchbook

For the still life module from my photography course I’ve taken my sketchbook as the ‘hero’ object with pen and watercolour box as secondary props.

wallet

My wallet was the first thing that I had to hand, so I set up my desktop ‘studio’ – a curved sheet of watercolour for ‘infinity curve’ background.

Dinky toy

Also making an appearance, centre stage, my 1950 Bedford delivery van Dinky Toy.

Bedside Table

bedside table

The light was fading when we arrived at the hospice so this evening it was still life rather than landscape in my pocket sketchbook.

bedside table

Drawn at Diana’s

sketches of mugs, vases, lamp and clock

Drawn at Diana’s this afternoon, sadly P.C. the black cat is no longer with us, as I usually drew him when we visited.

High-speed Still Life

sketches

Don’t get me wrong, I like slow drawing. I love to follow a contour at the speed that an ant would trundle along it. I find cross-hatching, bracelet shading and stippling mindlessly absorbing – or should that be mindfully?

But, as I’ve recently been taking a close look at the work of Quentin Blake, I can also see that it can be liberating to have a change of pace and to lighten up a bit, so each of these little details was completed in a minute or so. No shading, just outline.

As we reach a milestone on what we hope might be a steady return to some kind of normality, I should explain that I’m drawing these on location only because we’re in my brother-in-law John’s support bubble, on our regular socially-distanced visit. Monday morning walking around Illingworth Park with John is the social highlight of our week.