It’s mid-winter, and bitterly cold where I am. Snow, floods and ice are not enticing me out right now. It’s time to wrap up in blankets, get a hot drink and look for indoor inspiration.
Drawing objects involves the same sort of decisions as any subject matter, in terms of shapes, space, colour and tone, contrasts, mood, balance, harmony and feeling. It’s also very accessible, and has a long pedigree stretching back into the past -artists have used objects from their surroundings as vhicles for their image making for ever. When you’re drawing at home, or joining me for a class, it pays to spend a bit of time gathering objects together which will be interesting to you, and provide opportunities for interpreting textures, exploring modelling, contrasts, and tone and colour.
Start with objects already around your home, in different shapes, sizes and textures. Anything is fair game for drawing! -a shoe, a candle stick, a cabbage, a bottle, a crumpled pillow case, the aftermath of dinner. Get curious about it, even if you’ve seen it a hundred times. Have you really looked, at the shapes, the surface, the angles? How could you indicate that texture, mix that colour?
Objects organised in groups give you more to see and interpret, and are a way to begin playing with composition. In this grouping, there are a few ceramic pots with similar shapes but quite different sizes (repetition); there are contrasts of texture (variety), and the objects are grouped in such a way that the eye travels through them, they relate, like group of friends having a conversation.
Some artist stick with the same obects which appear over and over in their work through their life. Ben Nicholson’s striped and spotted jugs and mugs appear over and over throughout his art, but over time they transformed, he interpreted them afresh. You can read more about his still life collection here, at the Pallant House Gallery website.
This idea might horrify you though. If you’ve been drawing the same things for years and are feeling stale, try looking eleswhere in your home for objects you haven’t spent time looking at. The veg drawer in the fridge is a good source of change (and often decay!) – there are often things in there or the fruit bowl in various states of freshness, and perhaps it changes by season and even variety. Apples will certainly change variety through the winter, with russets in autum, golden yellow matt skin, through to deep red flecked ones which are appearing now. You can cut and slice your fruit and vegetabels in different ways to create a new view. Below: Pak choi, drawing in graphite, sliced in half and observed in coloured pencil, then printed. The remains went in the stir-fry.
Small ornaments can make a good study by themselves. You never know how they may become involved in something else later on… like the animated objects in the 2017 Disney film of Beauty and the Beast (director Bill Condon), your possessions might take on imagined a life of their own.
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Caroline Homfray 