The task was to select two or three objects with a shiny surface, place a light source at one side and then draw the objects with the patterns of shadow and reflected light.
Page 1: B/W pencil drawing of two objects
It took me quite long to decide on the objects for this drawing. I tried some porcelain mugs, but they were so shiny and reflective and it was almost impossible for me to distinguish object reflections from reflected that I thought they’d be too difficult for this task. Finally I selected a clay pitcher and a clay plant pot, which both had shiny surfaces but these were not extremely reflexive.
The drawing began timidly as ever, with very light searching lines and minimal shadings. I wasn’t very satisfied and continued to work, trying to bring out more tones and achieve a broader array of tones from light to dark. I found it quite difficult to distinguish the main shadow pattern from tonality resulting from reflected light. But after some time there was a moment when I felt like I had stepped over an inner limit, from then on I could work more freely and applied more pressure on the pencil, resulting in darker tones and more contrasts.
I also became less concerned with getting details right and began to see larger patterns of shaded areas. I used a freestyle hatching technique which I find a bit too rough for the smooth surfaces, the hatching marks are sometimes too bold. But overall I feel I’ve made a step forward with this drawing, maybe beginning to overcome fears to spoil a drawing by making “false” marks.
Page 2: Coloured pastel drawing
I wanted to try out the same arrangement on mid-tone paper, to work out light and dark areas with black and white pastels. When looking through my drawing materials, I found pressed pastel blocks in brown tones, and decided to try whether I could draw the tonality of my clay objects in colour.
I’m very new to pastel and decided to give it a go without further preparation, in the hope of ‘learning by doing’. I found it rather difficult to depict the dark and light areas – the different brown tones of my pastel sticks did not blend very well, and rather than having gradations of darkness, I had a mixture of various brown tones. I began to apply the pastels more densely, which improved the colouring, but I was not satisfied. Finally I smudged the colours to create a more even surface. This worked rather well. I stopped at that point.
My initial idea to use the paper’s colour as mid tone wasn’t at all achieved, instead it has been a learning experience in pastel colouring. Maybe I’ll give it another try using only black and white pastels on grey paper. Leaving out colours should help to focus on gradations of tonality and the shading pattern.