Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Asian Pears: thumbnails and greyscales


Asian Pears #1 and #2
8.25" x 5.25" (A5) pencil on Winsor and Newton Bristol Board 115 lb
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I've bought some Asian Pears with the intention of doing a still life. However, I'm enjoying working in pencil again so I decided to do some studies before I started to draw in coloured pencil or pastel; in effect producing large thumbnails in greyscale.

My aim last night was to to practice drawing the pears to understand them better and to start experimenting with composition and crop, hopefully with the idea of finding one which I want to pursue further. In the end I only did two drawings. I was trying to test:
  • how distant / how close up - where should the edges of the study come? (I didn't really get very far with exploring this one)
  • what sort of impact different lighting had
  • the relationship between the two pears - how close / how distant
  • the relationship between the pears and their shadows
The drawings also meant that I explored form and values in greyscale before getting going with colour when I do a fresh study.

I like to build in shadow into my still lifes from the start and liked the idea of overlapping shapes of both pear and shadow. The light sources came from behind and to the left and I think are maybe making it overcomplicated at the moment - but I'll see. I'll probably be continuing with more studies tonight - maybe trying a different tack.

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6 comments:

  1. I love each of these, but I especially love them together, side by side. Beautiful textures and shadows!

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  2. Don't wait too long before you do the painted one. You might end up with over-ripe pears. lol Very nice shadows. Jeanne

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  3. Thanks for the link to your squidoo (art journals) lens. I try to do at least one drawing,scribbly sketch or colour study per day.Some days, life beats art,but I try to catch up!

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  4. I have a lighting idea for you...how about lighting them from below so it casts huge looming shadows of the pears above them? It would probably be very intense. I love these pear drawings, they are very calming.

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  5. These are beautiful. The shadows are unbelievable.

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  6. Beautiful pears. There is something so elegant about a pear, isn't there? I really wonder sometimes why a lot of girls think pear shaped is a negative! I think the composition on the right is my favourite. Also many thanks again, Katherine, for the wonderful links through your Blogs - I now have six Andrew Loomis books which I found through your links. Wonderful! ciao Robyn

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