Your composition should occupy most of the paper’s surface. How much negative space do you have left?
The question seems to refer to a distinct composition without specifying which one this would be… So I’ll answer in a summary fashion. Some of my drawings occupy quite much of the paper, for example the sketchbook page with three vegetables compositions. Others are tiny studies on a large, empty space, like the first flat peach study in the sketchbook. The more developed drawings, like the felt pen compositions of vegetables and fruits, are drawn without background, there’s just white (from the white drawing table) and some shades. The exception to this were the two final oil pastel drawings, where I tried to draw the table on which the plate was positioned.
Overall, I’d say there was too much empty space in my compositions. This was probably a result of my approach of not thinking about the surrounding space and focusing on the objects instead. Also, I’m not very fond of cropping objects. I prefer to have them whole on the page, and this leads to dimensioning them small enough to fit on the selected paper format. Although I realize that the sketchbook page where I did compositional studies of cropped objects are among those I find very strong.
For most of these drawings the empty space around the main object doesn’t disturb me too much, but it’s certainly something to start thinking about in the future. A drawing is more complete if there’s an indication of what is around.
What have you learned from drawing the details of fruit and vegetables?
I have learnt that it’s very difficult… and that I need much more practice. I’ve also learnt that some drawing tools are much more appropriate for drawing fine details than others. For example, pencil and coloured pencils work quite well, but charcoal or oil pastels don’t work at all for fine details.
What did you find most challenging about this part of the course?
I was really struggling with oil pastels in this project. I wouldn’t have thought that it’s so difficult to master. I feel that I need much more practice to learn how to build up colour without closing the paper surface, and also how to indicate texture without trying to draw the details.