Still Life Table

Karen Greene charcoal drawing

I always like to have a theme running through my regular classes. It helps me to organise the teaching process and gives the members of the class an opportunity to experiment and try out new things. At the moment we’re looking at the possibilities of still life – something which can be so exciting but done badly can be dull as dishwater. So we’re going to try and push the boundaries and see what we can come up with. Each week I am taking some of the traditional still life objects such as fruit, bowls, glasses, cloths (amongst many others), a table top and a light source. This time I set up a “geometric” still life of a round table top, square napkins, spherical fruit, round bowl and a light source which was threaded through the objects themselves. I then suggested one of my favourite exercises of drawing the objects once using line, changing position and superimposing another line drawing on top (or maybe also a third).

The white balls are the light source (or one of the light sources)

Margaret McKee Charcoal drawing (above) and Acrylic colour study

Rossi McConaghy Charcoal Drawing

Of course these are recreational art classes so no one needs to do the themes that I set, I am more than willing to work on a one-to-one basis with each person on their own personal projects. Some of the following are works in progress …