Still Life WIP

Here is the start of my first still life drawing. No bowls of fruit here, no sir. These are all objects I have in my home (I actually bought the globe at a thrift store just for this purpose). Way back several years ago when I set this up, I actually had a vision pop into my head of what I wanted it to look like. I think this setup is pretty close to that. I set everything up and photographed it, which was good because it has been taken down and everything put away since then. I wanted the only light source to be the lamp in the drawing, which made it hard to photograph well.

To begin the drawing, I first had to cut out frisket film for all the items on the table. This is really the only way to get the background done right, without getting smudges into the white parts. This is especially true for the lampshade, which will remain mostly paper-white. I used a 6B charcoal compressed stick to layer the wall, smudging with a tissue in between layers. I used a chamois cloth to get the light parts light and smooth. However, this is where the choice of paper had its drawback - I chose a smooth bristol to get the level of detail I want, but the smoothness does not hold layers well. This made it very hard to get a smooth, dark wall. The actual wall is textured, and I am debating on whether to include that in the drawing.

Finally, the table was done using 8B graphite. I used horizontal strokes to effect a woodlike texture, then blended with a torillon in the same diraction. Then I sprayed the whole thing with workable fixative. I removed one frisket - the circle for the globe - for this photo. The rest remain in place and you can see the overlap of Since I am right-handed, I will be working left-to-right on this drawing. Stay tuned!