Sketching Project Topic 1: Still Life
This page is about the first topic of the Sketching Project, a long-term endeavour created to help everyone learn or relearn sketching. You can find out what the project is about on the following page:
The topic is laid out for a duration of 3 months, but it does not matter which months you choose. The beginning of January is just as good as end of March or mid October. It’s always the right time!
All you need to do to get started is have a quick read through the outline, get your materials ready and follow the drawing prompts for each week below.
A number of Still Life-related articles will bring you up to speed on the theory and give you some helpful tips.
Still Life Sketching Prompts
Week 1: Kitchen and Bathroom Objects
Week 2: Lounge and Office Objects
Week 3: Food and Drink
Week 4: Houseplants
Week 5: Tools and Toys
Week 6: Clothes and Textiles
Week 7: Shoes and Jewellery
Week 8: Crumpled paper
Week 9: Copying popular Still Lifes (such as this van Gogh example)
Week 10: Unfamiliar Objects (this one was my favourite)
Week 11: Materials and Texture
Week 12: Groups of Objects
Some thoughts I’ve had while sketching Still Lifes
I’m so out of practice I feel as if I've never drawn anything before in my life.
Grass grows faster than I draw.
Seriously, how can my hands have forgotten everything, what about muscle memory?
At this rate I'm surprised I remembered which way around to hold the pencil.
Eggs are far harder to draw than they have any right to be, wow.
Note to self: a glass of wine before drawing actually has a positive effect on the work. Helps to stop caring so much about the outcome.
Turns out, not everyone will suddenly discover drawing fruit is actually super interesting. Some subjects we're just not into and that's okay.
Main difficulties I’ve faced sketching Still Lifes
The logistics. As this was the first topic of the Sketching Project it took me a while to work out when, how often and how long of a practice was necessary versus possible.
“Beginners” frustrations. Since I was so out of practice my finished sketches looked terrible, which made it hard to keep going.
Shading. It’s sometimes super difficult to decide how much and where to shade with my rough sketching style, especially around folds and creases.
Tripod versus overhand grip. I was trying out the overhand grip for a while because it has a lot of advantages, but it just doesn't work for me and my drawing style. Luckily I know that one of my favourite artists doesn’t use it much either.
Things I’ve learned during this Topic
Rough, fast sketching is definitely a skill in its own right. It’s super difficult to draw some things fast and have them still be recognisable.
I now believe that a good warm-up is the answer to all of life’s questions and possibly the secret to unlock the universe.
Things look 100% better if you embrace the roughness of a sketch and don't worry about accuracy.
Sketching when you’re super tired or not in the mood at all amounts to nothing and will only frustrate you.
Other Topics
You can find all the finished topics of the Sketching Project below, which include their related sketching prompts and links to specific articles:
