I have hitherto denoted shadow by shading, usually working on smaller sheets of paper, but I am really growing to enjoy working on large sheets of paper with crayon or charcoal, and so I approached this exercise with a degree of expectation. After a couple of sketches in my A3 sketchbook playing around with the arrangement of my objects (a lidded serving bowl and a gravy boat) I chose the one I preferred (basically where the gravy boat looked the least weird – unless you looked at it exactly side-on, its sweeping curves did notgo where you would have thought they were going to!), I chose to work in charcoal on A2 paper.
I worked in natural light on a bright day in our north-facing garden room, where the objects were lit from two sides, which made for a lot of unexpected shadow and reflected light. The objects were sitting on a small table of a similar colour, with occasional startling contrasts from the darker terracotta floor. Having chosen two very rounded objects, many of the shadows were also curved, but with some almost-straight lines where the objects reflected the windows. Many quite dark areas had a light sliver right at the edge where light was coming from behind them, and there were several interesting little light areas, eg under the handle of the serving dish.
The tone of the background was close to that of the objects in several places; in others it was startlingly different. The cast shadows on the table were quite complex with the two light sources (three if you count the skylight above), which added to the interest of the piece.
I feel my finished drawing shows clear contrast between lights and darks and is quite a strong lively rendering (which of course might not be appropriate to all situations); I think a little more practice in looking at transition through the midtones would be of benefit.
Sue J's blog 