Still Life, Shading Using Charcoal #1

This arrangement was drawn in charcoal which is good for expressing the tones and shadows in a still life scene, but because of the messy nature of charcoal a lot of care was taken to makes sure none of the artists smudged their work.

To better help accentuate the differences in the shadows and different values in tones a spotlight was turned on for the scene, while helpful to most this left the people sat at either the same side as the lamp or on the opposite side of the scene with none or too much shadow. luckily the author of this piece wasn't in that situation and has a good variety of tonal values.

There are three points of focus that grab your attention when you look at this image, the cylinder that has shading that follows the shape and contours of its curved surface a, the right face on the cube under the cylinder which practically black and pops out compared to the tame and more smoothed out shading of the surrounding images and finally the cone which has a nice contrasting mix of shading values from the dark harder shading on the left side which blends into the softer left side of the cone and finally the highlight at its centre, 3 different degrees of tonal value that flow into each other.

The last thing to note is the use of the putty rubber to add highlights or take out harsher tones in the drwing, especially on the left side of the drapery which very subtly changes in value from light with highlights of shading to an overall singular tone with the implied line of the tables edge just visible.