Last year, I signed up for a drawing course and shared my progress. This year, I signed up for the follow-up course and I wanted to share the end results.

The course was structured the same as the previous one, but with more emphasis on shading. It challenged me in ways I wasn’t expecting, notably around portrait drawing which I’ll share in a moment.

Still Life#

The first drawing I completed was a still life of a bottle and apple sitting on a box. There’s also some golf balls on a shelf and a chair leg in the background.

The most challenging part of this drawing was the reflections in the bottle. I’d never drawn anything reflective before so capturing that in charcoal proved challenging. I found that a strong contrast between the reflective bits and the bottle itself yielded the most striking results.

Portrait#

The second drawing we did was a portrait. I had to draw a fellow classmate and they me. I will not share the full portrait out of respect for their privacy, but I will share their eyes as I think they’re the most striking aspect of the drawing.

This assignment nearly broke me. I’d never drawn a portrait before, so there was stress from that. Plus trying not to butcher my fellow classmates’ face added to the pressure. It’s one thing to draw a bottle and apple, but it’s entirely different to capture the human face. There’s a phrase for images that capture the human visage without looking quite right, it’s called the uncanny valley. Despite my misgivings, the results were better than I expected.

Still Life #2#

The third drawing was another still life. This time, there was a lot more going on than a simple bottle and apple. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with how it turned out (it was my least favorite), but like anything else I did the best I could.

Memento Mori#

The final drawing we did was a vanitas still life which is a still life of items that hold significance to the artists. In my case, I drew stuffed animals from my childhood. From left-to-right, top-to-bottom the drawing has a stuffed dog, a stuffed grape, a watermelon, and a panda bear. I’ve had my doggy and panda since I was in dippers while the grape and watermelon I became friends with at age five.

I was pleased with how this drawing turned out. I did my best to capture their individual fuzziness (extremely tricky). I had to experiment quite a bit, but overall, I’m pleased with the results.

Closing Thoughts#

This course challenged me in ways I wasn’t expecting. Every drawing pushed me to try something new. Overall, given the end results, I’d say it was a very fruitful course.