Still Life of Basket and Pine Cone w/ Ink

For Art 130A Intro to Drawing at CCSF, we drew a still life using sumi ink and various paint brushes and tools (hands, paper towel, etc).

Comparing my first attempt with my final submission, I spent a lot more time detailing the intricate layering of the woven basket on the left. I chose to sit much closer to the still life so that I could actually see the details of the triangles. Not sure if it’s my visual impairment but it’s very hard to capture the weaves otherwise.

I was VERY proud of my original attempt at the curved tube on the right and basically copied it outright. My technique involved painting the lower shadow with heavy value first, then letting the ink and brush dry to drag some streaks up using the dry sponge brush. Curving the stroke allowed me to imply a roundness to the tube. I think my original attempt did a better job at capturing the highlights on the pipe and I unfortunately did not carry this to my final submission.

The stick was a big miss on my original attempt, and I learned to look at the details from Maruka sitting next to me.

For the pine cone, I borrowed from styles of Ari who actually drew four complete compositions in different styles. I was thoroughly impressed and loved the tapping of a dry ink brush the most, focusing on creating triangles of shapes which form into the pine cone’s points and shadows.

This project really forced me to look at triangles rather than lines and blobs. Triangles are how computers render models, scenes, and animations. Lots of little triangles form shapes which form a composition. Now looking at real life compositions, I see lots of little triangles and it’s beautiful.