Vases, Faces, Upside-Down, and Still Life

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Paul Cifarelli
Media Design Studio
Vases and Faces, Upside Down, and Still Life
9/24/2019

The vases and faces exercise proved to be a little challenging but was also the quickest part of the assignment.  One of the biggest things I struggle with as an artist is drawing symmetrically.  For some reason, it’s difficult for me to replicate the same shape or line multiple times and will go out of my way to make them perfect.  Admittedly, I honestly wanted to do this exercise digitally to make the drawing easier.  I would just have to draw one line, copy, paste, flip it horizontally, and put it next to the original line.  However, I’m satisfied with how the drawing turned out despite my weakness.

The upside-down exercise was also a challenge, but a welcome one.  The idea of drawing something upside-down instead of right-side up threw me for a loop.  Naturally I wanted to flip the example in the chapter right-side up and go from there, but I had to resist.  When it came to drawing, I started from the head at the bottom of my page and worked to the body at the top of my page.  The trickiest parts were drawing the head upside-down and crossed hands.  Hands have been and always will be my least favorite part of the human body to draw, due to their difficulty.  Once the drawing was finished, I was actually amazed at how it came out.

When it came to drawing my still life object, I still stuck with my two available drawing tools: pencil and pen/marker.  I wanted to use different types of paper and make each drawing different from one another. As a result, I used notebook paper and a sticky notepad from my realter agent’s company, along with my already used sketchbook.  The difference between a color with shadow, black and white with shadow, and black and white without shadows was the goal to make each still life distinct from each other.  The different sizes in paper allowed for drawings that were almost 1:1 scale or much bigger.  Finally, the choice of a simple pencil sharpener was because I wanted my object to be easy to draw in repetition, instead of being too complex and difficult with each drawing.

I see the object much differently now because of spending a lot of time with it.  Even though the pencil sharpener is quite simple, there’s still little details.  For instance, the curves and ridges when it’s open, the shadows cast on its face, to the streak of light cast on its side.  Unfortunately, I didn’t possess the particular color of the sharpener, but I tried to get close enough because even the color is an important detail.  If I wanted to increase the details, I could’ve taken the sharpener apart and expose the blades inside.  Even without drawing them, I know those details are there.  I'm please with how each still life turned out different from the last.

The full display

Close up of the still life object, a pencil sharpener.

Is it a vase, or two faces? The debate goes on.

Right-side up drawn upside-down, or was it upside-down drawn right side up?

Color pencil still life on big drawing pad

Black and white pencil still life on notebook paper

Black and white marker still life on small sticky notepad

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