
Discover real-life still life drawing by finding everyday arrangements and practicing continuous-line drawing, watercolor, and varied ink and mixed-media techniques for vibrant, personal works.
Attached is a supply list for this class. I'm giving you lots of options, but use what you have!
Attached is the photo I'll be using in this section.
Explore ink drawing of a real-life still life using a one continuous line approach, erase pencil lines, and add leaves and dots to distinguish salt from pepper.
Practice a loose watercolor first pass to paint roses and breadsticks, letting color flow and dry between layers, using Naples yellow and burnt sienna for warm, abstract edges.
Attached is the fruit stand photo I'm working from in this section.
Explore bold ink drawing with a dip pen, building varied line weights, avoiding blobs, and using left-to-right strokes to render a simple street scene with fruit stand as focal point.
Practice drawing a real-life still life by rendering various fruits and vegetables with overlapping shapes, bold ink lines, and irregular forms. Then apply watercolor and add shading to enhance realism.
Create bold, woodcut–look shadows by emphasizing the spaces between the boxes with thick ink, and shade around the fruit to deepen dark areas.
Learn to paint a real-life watercolor still life of fruits using bold colors and careful color mixing, while leaving white space to create contrast and a three-dimensional look.
Explore watercolor greens by painting leeks, artichokes, cucumbers, and cabbages with varied greens and shadows; mix sap green with blue and yellow ochre, build depth.
Attached is the photo I'm working from in this section.
Learn watercolor first layers in a still life, starting with a Naples yellow wash to unify tones, then build pumpkin colors with light blocks and careful layering to prevent bleeding.
Master gouache details by layering rich watercolor to build depth and texture in a still life of pumpkins, using varied lines, color mixing, and strong light and shadow.
Learn to use a cream-colored acrylic paint pen to highlight a gouache underlayer, layering over colored pencils and markers to create depth, texture, and lively pumpkin details.
Apply ink to a real-life still life to darken lines and outline stems and pumpkin features, creating a hand-drawn, signature look with black or colored pens.
Wrap up by exploring single-line drawings, bold black lines with dip pen and ink, and watercolor layering or mixed media to tell stories of a produce stand and farmers markets.
If you like to sketch from life, you probably draw street scenes, landscapes, people, and architecture—but do you ever stumble across a still life in real life?
It could be a vase and salt and pepper shakers on the table in a café, a produce stand at a farmer’s market, or an arrangement of pumpkins on your neighbor’s porch.
In this class, we’ll explore the kinds of still life subjects you encounter in real life, and learn how to make the most of:
· Interesting linework
· Vivid colors
· Dynamic compositions
· Strong contrast between shapes, colors, and values
In three sections, we’ll try three different approaches:
· First, we’ll draw a simple arrangement on a table in a restaurant, done with a single drawing pen and watercolor. We’ll take an unusual approach to this one—we’re going to draw the entire scene with just one line, never lifting our pen from the paper.
· Second, we’ll draw a produce stand using bold, black ink and a strong graphic style.
· Third, we’ll paint an arrangement of pumpkins on a neighbor’s porch in a lively mixed media style.
You’ll be able to explore a wide range of materials, including watercolor, gouache, ink, colored pencil, and marker. And if you don’t have all those supplies, don’t worry! I’m going to give you lots of options in each section so that you can work with whatever you have.
By the end of the class, I hope you’ll appreciate how rewarding it can be to add still life to your art practice to help tell the story of your everyday environment and the world around you.