Still Life Drawings - Ramon Montes

 In this assignment, we were meant to choose an object to draw 4 times and experiment with different settings and approaches in capturing the object. The object I chose, which was complex and intriguing was a light/candle sort of object.

My Object: Lamp/Candle
(Drawing #3)

I chose this object because I figured I could capture it with and without it’s light in different times of the day. I also liked the art style so I decided to rotate it around with each drawing and tried to capture the object at different angles. I will cover each drawing in chronological order.

For my first still life drawing, I wanted to depict this object as accurately as I could. Typically, the object is never turned on in my house since my dad hates candles, so I chose to keep it off since this is its normal presentation in the house. I used regular computer paper, relied heavily on a sketch pencil, colored pencils, and a fine line pen for the words. I drew rather slowly for this drawing as I wanted the details to look accurate.

Drawing #1

 My second drawing is on a yellow post-it note. I was extra careful when drawing this one as I was drawing with a fine line pen, and I also did some coloring with colored pencils. Since I mainly captured the art in the initial drawing, I wanted to show where the main light source would be, but I wanted the object turned off since I felt the fine line pen could capture the darkness of the inside better.

Drawing #2

I created the third drawing at night time, and so this is where I had the object’s light turned on. Since I had used color in my previous drawings, I wanted to experiment with making this one solely black and white. I used a sketchbook with 9in. x 6in. sheets. I only used a pencil for this one and drew at a quicker rate, but focuses more heavily on shadows and lighting. It might be hard to tell, but I also took a more bird’s eye perspective when capturing the object in this drawing.

Drawing #3

As for my final drawing, I experimented with using pastel pencils on construction paper. This one was captured in the afternoon and in the photo, the objects light looked orange-yellowish so that is why I decided on the color of the paper. I positioned it in both light and dark for a different feeling, and the perspective leans slightly towards worm’s eye view, but not too drastic. I would say my pace was steady during the process.

Drawing #4

I would definitely say I see it differently now that I have drawn it repeatedly. There were times when I needed to observe it closely, and I noticed an interesting feature of the object up-close. It looks almost as if there is a small layer of cracks and/or webbing throughout the object. It makes me curious as to how it obtained this nature during its process of creation. I also really liked the light it produced, while I was drawing the third image. I ended up keeping it on all night. I might turn it on every now and then, when my dad isn’t looking.