This was an exercise in depicting light and dark to reflect three-dimensions. I was asked to chose two simple and pale objects and place them together and position a lamp os they were light only from one side and then draw them, paying attention to the shadow and tone.
I first did some preliminary sketches to figure out where the light was as per the below. The first one on the top left I tried to draw in a classic way using an outline and drawing around the shadows. I then did another trying just to block in the tone and really trying to draw what I see and not what I expect, the latter was definitely not easy but much more fluid and intuitive.
I then did the drawing itself, I struggled to get accuracy by only filling in tone and did a mix of very light lines to guide me on main shapes and filling in tone straight off. I used charcoal on its side to fill in blocks but I found it not so easy to be accurate so I then used a leather rub to blend it, as well as a putty rubber and charcoal and normal pencils to fill in the tones and bring back light parts and get the small details. I started with a middle grey tone and then worked with a harder press or softer and darker pencils to fill in the dark and lighter greys for the lighter areas. This was an advised process which worked really well as sometimes I think I am not leave enough to put down so much charcoal/pencil and my drawings tend to be light and I still think, even with the below, I could have perhaps been bolder with the darker parts.
I enjoyed working with the teapot as it was glossy and reflected the candle and the general light as well as part of the paper I was working on so it was fun really capturing those shapes and tones. The candle seems a bit strange as the melted part really full separated the light from the dark part but this is how I saw it.
I also realise that I perhaps didn’t capture the same level of perspective on the ellipses of the candle top and teapot top which throws off the proportion.
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