Last class

So, most of May I've been working on this still life in the studio.


As always, you start with the dots


Eventually developing the contour, and then, as I said, go on to refine, refine, refine.


...and refine...


Finally, you move on to values.


Ultimately, the thing that I wanted to know is how do you draw something white on a dark grey paper using black charcoal. It's quite the balancing act, getting the values to go back down the scale far enough to imitate reality. It's hard to explain.




Stephanie painting her lemons is doing the same process only with the added level of aggravation of colour.


Here's where we left it today.






One more class left to finish tomorrow.

Then I'm going to have to take a long break. I've been doing well, racing out of the house every morning to get the 8:06 train into Rome to get to class by ten. Class is three hours, on your feet, then the train back to S. Mar or the office to spend the rest of the day working. It's been going just fine, but I've started to reach a limit and am now getting really, deeply tired. Tired in a way that it difficult to get over in just one night's sleep. So, a break.

Also, I am totally out of money. I've paid up to the end of April's classes, but am now back in the red to the tune of about 1200 Euros, so for a while anyway, classes have to stop. I'm so broke, in fact, that it's why there aren't more transition photos in the still life posts. I ran out of both batteries for my camera and money at about the same time. For a while at least, doctor's bills are going to have to take precedence again.

And I'm going to love sleeping in!



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