Still Life

In art class, it is common to draw a still life that’s set before the class. Some teachers might have you draw them in graphite, pastels or charcoal.

The idea behind drawing the still life is to practice and get better at recreating, in detail, what you see. As well as getting the proportions right, you have get the shading and tonality and texture right as well.

Many years ago, I was drawing a still life of an apple with pastels. The professor was observing the students’ work, and he came up to me and suggested not to use only red for the apple, but to use blue, orange, green, etc. He explained that although the apple appears to be one color (red), but it’s actually made up of a multitude of colors that are imperceptible to the eye.

It’s similar to the painting by Georges Seurat entitled A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Georges used a style of painting called pointillism in which he applied individual dots on the canvas until he had completed the picture. Each dot was just a color, but the total sum of those dots created a scene with distinct people and objects.

Without even mentioning Georges Seurat, my art professor taught me this very concept by a simple suggestion. Afterward, I began to color the apple with different colored pastels: orange, blue, purple, etc. After I finished, I was surprised with how vivid and colorful the apple turned out.

It has been many years since that teaching moment, but it has stuck with me till this day. I learned how important it was to try new things and to experiment in whatever craft you practice–and to see the complexity in something as simple as an apple.