A Guide to Still Life Drawings

The art of still life drawings is a unique type that requires a certain amount of patience and focus. Though the art form is often thought of as a more difficult style, the result of a well planned and patient effort can be greatly appreciated once completed. The following are a few things that I learned in my experience drawing still life drawings. The key thing to remember is the amount of patience that is required to make a well drawn still life, the only way to get better at it is to practice as much as possible and experiment with different methods that work the best for yourself.

The first thing that should brought up is the still life itself. The best thing about the style of art is the fact that it can involve every single thing visible to the eye. Anything that can be seen can become the centerpiece for your drawing. One good idea to start out with is to come up with or to compile a certain theme for the still life. In many art projects that I have done over the years that I have done still life drawings in there has always been some sort of theme to choose from that was set up in the room. Some examples to be thought of for themes could be sports, music, or holidays all made up different things that bring out the feeling of the theme. For the musical idea, by arranging different musical pieces such as guitars and drums together in a part of a room, you can accomplish a sense of a musical theme.

After the object or setting for the drawing has been selected, whether or not it be a theme setting, the next thing that should be considered is the focus point for the still life. In this aspect, you can decide how little or how much of the setting you want to incorporate into the still life. If you choose to use less of the setting you can bring more of the detail out of the main focus. If you decide to use more of the setting in the drawing, meaning that you have in a sense stepped back for the whole picture, then the details of the arrangement aren’t as important as the abundance of objects being presented in the picture. A helpful tip of finding the perfect focus is to use a camera and take different pictures to work off of. With the pictures you can have a real picture that is already to scale to the actual setting. The combination of the pictures and the real setting can help to bring about a full and focused still life.

It should be noted that it is till very important to incorporate most of the time to checking out the actual setting over the picture because of the important detail that is in the setting. Most of the time the picture can’t be depended on the depict the amount of lighting that needs to be expressed in the drawing. The shading of the still life really helps to bring about the overall realistic aspect to the drawing itself as well as affect the mood of the drawing. Sometimes it can be helpful when shading, to assess how dark of a shade is on a certain area by using a scale. As a tool to determine a consistent shade for the still life, you can create a shading scale on a piece of scrap paper. The scale itself can be made up of a series of at least ten squares that are shaded darker as the scale goes up with the last box being the darkest shade found in the still life. Though the implement of this scale is simple, in combination with the time spent matching it to the real setting, it can help to bring out a consistent and realistic flow to the drawing.

Another tip on using a photograph for a still life drawing is to try and make a transparent grid. The use of a grid will help to get the right scale in your still life. The size of the grid squares depends on the size that the drawing is going to be. If a regular size photograph is taken for the focus of a still life and a larger size sketch paper is used for the drawing itself (ex. 14″x17″ or larger), then you want to try and match up the size of the grid to where the squares on the paper break up the complexity of the still life the best. In other words, if the focus of a still life is a closer picture that shows more detail, then it may be more appropriate to come up with a scale of smaller squares to help break up the things you have to concentrate on. This method can be used to help blow up the still life to any size and still keep a strong sense of accuracy in keeping the dimensions right.

Again, Still life drawings are a type of artwork that take time. The best way to discover your talent is to practice with various methods until you find a smooth style that is comfortable. Some artist choose to only sketch still life drawings using shading to bring it out the best, while others decide to impalement the use of color to help bring it out in the most natural form. In my experience doing still life drawings, I also found that this style of art can be used as a great way to implement abstract techniques as well. In the sketch that I provided, I drew a picture of the mannequin that my teacher brought in as a prop. In my attempt to make the picture more morbid and dark, I added the different creepy details such as the arm and chain coming from the air vent and the gun on the table. Another thing that can be seen is the snake like figures that seem to drip from the bookshelves.

In conclusion still life art can be a great style to experiment with. The overall satisfaction alone of being able to depict a real object or setting is something that can’t be compared to. With enough effort and practice, still life drawing can become a great skill for anyone who is inspired enough to keep practicing. It is my great hope that this was informative and helpful to anyone looking for advice on doing still life drawings.