Here’s the result from my latest art class. The goal was to complete a tone drawing, using all ten tones. I wish I had taken a photo of my charcoal drawing before I put in the shadows, as this was really hard for me. I had trouble with the white vase and I spent close to an hour sketching and erasing and sketching. (Remember, I’m starting from zero.)

The bamboo skewer is a tool to show that visually, from the artist’s seat, the two halves of the bowl are not the same and not to sketch them the same size; the back half is foreshortened. I removed the skewer after sketching the bowl. (The drop cloth is a light khaki color; my camera made it orange-ish for some reason in this photo.)

Still life with bamboo skewer

After I finally got to a point where I thought my sketch reasonably matched the still life, I put in the shadow tones. I’m pretty sure that all the shadow tones are not yet in all the appropriate places, but I’m beginning to understand the concept. It’s hard work for me, but I like it.

Still life with shadows