Formal elements and setting up a still life

1Objects that sit still for you

A still life is a drawing or painting of objects that do not move: fruit, pots, cups, baskets, tools, flowers. Look at a market stall in Kimironko or a kitchen shelf at home and you already have one. Artists have drawn still lifes for hundreds of years because the objects wait patiently, the light can be controlled, and every skill of drawing can be practised on them: shape, proportion, light, shadow and texture. Designers who draw products for advertisements and packaging use exactly the same skills.

2The formal elements

The formal elements are the basic ingredients from which every drawing is made. Learn their names, because you will use them to plan your own work and to describe the work of others.

• Line: a mark longer than it is wide. A contour line follows the edge of an object; a cross-contour line travels across its surface, like a line of latitude on a globe, and shows that it is round. A line that changes from thick to thin looks more alive than one of even weight.
• Shape: a flat area with an edge, such as a circle or a rectangle. Shapes are two-dimensional (2D).
• Form: a three-dimensional (3D) solid, such as a sphere, a cylinder, a cone or a box. An orange is a sphere; a cup is a cylinder.
• Value (tone): how light or dark an area is. Value turns a flat shape into a form.
• Texture: how a surface feels, or looks as if it would feel: rough, smooth, soft, shiny.
• Space: the area around and between objects, and the illusion of depth. The objects are positive shapes; the gaps between them are negative shapes.

Colour and pattern are elements too; you will use colour in the next unit.

3Setting up a still life

1. Choose 3 to 5 objects that differ in height, shape and surface: for example a clay pot, an enamel mug, two avocados and a folded cloth.
2. Overlap them so that some objects are partly hidden behind others. Overlap is the simplest way to show which is in front.
3. Vary the spacing. Avoid a straight row of objects standing like soldiers; group them, with one object slightly apart.
4. Light from one side, from a window or a torch, so that each object has a clear light side, a shadow side and a cast shadow.
5. Place the group below your eye level, on a desk or a stool, so that you look down into the tops of cups and pots.
6. Fix your viewpoint. Mark where your chair stands with chalk. If you move, the whole arrangement changes.

4Round rims are ellipses

The rim of a cup is a circle, but seen from the side it looks like a flattened circle called an ellipse. How flat it looks depends on how far the rim is below your eyes.

• A rim at eye level looks like a straight line; the further it is below your eyes, the rounder the ellipse.
• So the base of a cup, which is lower than its rim, is a slightly rounder ellipse than the rim, never a flat line.
• Ellipses have smooth, rounded ends. Pointed ends, like the shape of an eye, are the most common mistake.

5Blocking in with simple forms

Start with light lines. See each object as a simple form: the avocado an egg, the mug a cylinder, the pot a sphere with a cylinder on top. Draw each form lightly through the objects in front of it, as if they were made of glass, so that the hidden parts line up. Erase the hidden lines later.

Worked example: planning a still life

Mugisha sets up a clay pot, an enamel mug and two avocados, with a window on his left.

1. Arrange. The pot, the tallest object, goes at the back left. The mug goes in front on the right. One avocado lies in front of the pot's base, overlapping it; the other lies a little apart.
2. Measure. Holding his pencil at arm's length, he uses the mug as his unit. The pot is 2 mugs tall and 1.5 mugs wide; each avocado is about as long as the mug is tall.
3. Scale. He draws the mug 5 cm tall. So the pot is 2 × 5 = 10 cm tall and 1.5 × 5 = 7.5 cm wide, and each avocado about 5 cm long.
4. Check the ellipses. The mouth of the tall pot is closer to his eye level than the mug's rim, so he draws it as a thinner ellipse than the mug's rim.

6Make it: set up and block in

1. In groups of four, set up a still life of 3 to 5 objects using the six rules above.
2. Each person makes a viewfinder: a card with a window 7 cm × 10 cm, the same shape as an A4 page. Look through it and choose the best view.
3. Draw three thumbnails (small sketches about 5 cm × 7 cm) of different views. Pick the one that fills the page best.
4. On A4 paper, block in every object with simple forms in light HB lines, drawing through overlaps.
5. Check sizes against your unit object, and check every ellipse for rounded ends.
6. Lightly shade the negative shapes between objects. If a gap looks the wrong shape, an object is in the wrong place.

7Look closely

The French painter Jean-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779) was famous for quiet still lifes of ordinary things. Study The White Tablecloth and find the formal elements.

• Shape and form: the white cloth makes one large shape; the bucket on the floor is a cylinder and the loaf of bread is a rounded form.
• Ellipses: the plate, the standing glass and the top of the bucket are all circles seen as ellipses. The bucket top, nearest the floor and furthest below the painter's eye, is the roundest.
• Texture: compare the crusty bread, the soft cloth, the hard plate and the clear glass.
• Space: the bucket overlaps the tablecloth, so we know it stands in front of the table.

Practice