Still Life

The bottom picture is my final still life drawing. I think my drawing is less clear and defined and more blended with smudges.  I used a kneaded eraser to help blend my charcoal.  My values and shadows are realistic and I used all the ranges of value in my piece.  The values are what make this look more realistic and define what the objects are and how they are positioned. There is not a clear source of lighting that I see.  The compositional sketches we did in class before hand really helped in choosing, obviously, the composition of the piece but it showed how well it would look on the final paper and how much of the objects you could get in. I think my still life was all around more successful then I thought it was going to be.  I think the proportions are a little bit off like the vase should have been a bit bigger but the structures and perspective are correct.  I think the composition is very pleasing.  I don't think there is one thing that you look at for too long because your eyes kindof go in a circular motion and you see everything that is drawn.  I think I managed my time well in creating this drawing however I do think if I could do it again I would try and go bigger and fit more objects that were in the still life into it.  The flowers were somewhat of a challenge but I just took a little more time on them than on anything else and they ended up looking pretty great.  After drawing this still life, I've learned not to be so picky about small details but try and draw the shapes first when doing an outline and then when you go back in, you can add the details that you see.  Also drawing from life I think is much better than drawing from a photograph.  It might be more challenging but you definitely see different things in real life than you would if you looked at a picture.  It would have been a whole different drawing if I had done it from a photograph but that's just my opinion.