Charcoal and white conte
The whole focus of this drawing is the highlight on the top of the teaspoon at the top right.
I tried to make sure that every other tone in the drawing was dark enough to make it stand out. The only parts that come close to it in tone are the little flecks of light in the glass.
This was largely a matter of matching the tones to what I saw in this one, since the glass was almost completely in shadow, but I did darken everything, especially the foreground plane, in order to bring down the overall key of the picture and make that little highlight work.
This is a good example of how I’m no longer trying to draw exactly what I see in terms of value. I’ve also considerably simplified the tone blocks, and left out a lot of the detail. This would be an interesting one to paint I think, since the transparent glass, grey cloth and silver teaspoon make it a largely monochrome composition. It would be an interesting study in textures.
Speaking of painting, the itch is getting too strong to resist now. Especially since I’ve decided what my next series of paintings is going to be: a series of small tonal still lifes, no colour. I want to start trying to transfer what I’m learning with these drawings to paint, but to do it gradually. When I think I’m painting with value better, I’ll start to slowly reintroduce colour. I’m planning to do the first two of these new paintings this weekend.
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