Kitchen Table Fruit & Wine Still Life

Here's a recent still life drawing I created in my kitchen. Often the kitchen table is full of fruit and other kitchen stuff, so I grab my chair and look for a composition that I like and I start drawing. I might move a couple items but not too much because I want that random everyday living or everyday kitchen table feeling.

I have fun creating these drawings, they are challenging because there are so many shapes and the drawing page gets full. Hopefully my drawing can communicate clearly what I see.

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Fresh Fruit Still Life Drawing on Paper

How I love to draw fruit! If you want get better at drawing I believe drawing fruit offers the fundamental shapes for building good sketching skills. Especially if you're drawing bananas, they are the most difficult to draw. They look so simple but tough to draw when trying to capture their likeness.

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New Years Still Life Sketch

Here are two sketches I created at the beginning of the year. I wanted to start with a drawing pencil in my hand. In 2013 I do want to draw and paint more. I get so busy and the days just fly by that everything else just seems to get in the way of what I really enjoy doing most. But no excuse, I have to set my priorities and at least draw and paint a little bit everyday.

I recently applied to grad school for an MFA. I applied to the New York Academy of Art and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. I submitted my application with portfolio, so now for the wait, hopefully an acceptance letter. I'm a little nervous, fingers crossed, and Insha'Allah.

I don't think I'll ever lose interest in drawing still lifes, the possibilities and drawing challenges are endless especially when drawing bananas! I believe drawing fruits and vegetables are the next best thing to drawing the human figure from life.

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Playful Still life

Hmmmm… how did that Buzz Light Year toy appear in my still life? Haha, I like to think Buzz Light walked onto my still life while I wasn’t looking---how cool would that be? I’ve been watching a lot of Toy Story animation movies by Pixar with my nephew. They are so much fun to watch, very creative and funny. Good inspirational material for an artist and a 4-yr-old.

Lately I’ve been incorporating my nephew’s toys into my still lifes to add just a little more interest to each piece. My nephew knows I do this so the other day when he was going out the door for pre-school, he hands me his Buzz Light Year toy and says, “here uncle, draw my Buzz Light Year!” How can I pass up that request and what a great idea. I placed Buzz on the window counter, liked the compositions, and began sketching.

I’m looking forward to seeing Buzz magically appear in my other drawings.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Sweeney Todd and Still Life Drawing

Not too long ago, I was hooked on listening to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince while I created my still life drawings. Now while I draw, I’m hooked on listening to the Sweeney Todd movie sound track, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. This movie is directed by Tim Burton, with actors Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter. I’ve seen this movie, it’s intense! But the soundtrack I find pleasant to listen to and has a good tempo for me to create art.

So I listened to Sweeney Todd sound track while I created this piece. The scene is from my mom’s kitchen. Most of the objects were already there, I added a few items and took some things out to simplify it. What caught my attention in this scene was the tile, I like the effect tile gives my drawings, and I also like how these objects are together but don’t relate.

But the main reason I sat down to draw this scene is that it tells a story, there is a lot going on. The toys, tomatoes, cleanser, windowsill, faucet and tile gives us clues and a feeling of what day to day living is like in this environment.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Drawing Still Life with View Finder

Here’s a recent drawing I enjoy looking at. I’m still trying to find interesting ways to draw my nephew’s shoes, and this is a drawing that I think works. It is a busy scene. I like that, and I like how all the simple shapes of the fruit compliment the child’s playful shoe.

Drawing a scene like this can be overwhelming because there is so much I want to fit on the drawing page in a certain way. I wanted to make sure I got the left side of the shoe in, the banana and only part of the fruit bowl. I decided to crop the fruit bowl because if I sketched in the entire bowl, it would have made the shoes and other fruit proportionally small on my page.

So how do I decide how to crop the scene? There are several ways I do this. Lately I’ve been using a viewfinder that is proportional to my drawing page. (See sample picture below). I like this little artist tool; it’s quick and easy. If the scene is overwhelmingly busy and I want to only focus on a certain part of the scene then looking through this tool to determine sections I want to focus on really works. It helps me see the compositions within the page size in mind and helps me see the positive and negative shapes that come to the edge of the pages.

Here’s a picture of how I use it. It’s an easy tool to use. You move it forward and back to see how the composition will look on your page. There are many other ways to do this: sometimes I just visualize the edges then just start drawing and wait for final result. Or I can stretch out my arm, close one eye and visually align my pencil along the top, bottom sides of still life I want to draw, or I’ll us my hands to make a square with my fingers, this sometimes works. Whatever it takes, I just want to pick that composition so I can start drawing.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Toy Penguin and Loafers

"Hay! What's this penguin doing inside this shoe?" This is exactly what my 4 year old nephew, JD, said to this drawing. I didn't think much of it when I saw JD looking at this piece. He usually doesn't respond to my drawings, but with this one he got it. All of a sudden, he looked up at me, put his little index finger on my drawing and responded! "Hay! What's this penguin doing inside this shoe?" He made my day, I laughed, I loved his response.

These are JD's loafers, I've been wanting to draw them. They are so cute, and I've been wanting to incorporate some of JD's toys into my drawings. JD has a lot of toys, so I didn't want to think too much about selecting a toy, so I grabbed this penguin. It caught my attention, it's a character from the animated film Madagascar by Dreamworks. So I quickly put this still life together and started drawing.

I liked JD's response because when I begin a drawing I try to make sure it communicates clearly, I don't want to confuse the viewer or have them wonder what it is they are looking at. So seeing a child understanding my drawing on paper was a big compliment.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 11" x 14"

Kitchen Countertop Still Life Drawing

This is one of my favorite still life drawings. I've been wanting to post this one for a while. I like it when I create these types of drawings, they are really busy and fill the page.

Now, I believe there is a very important part to these types of drawings that brings everything together and helps make it successful and that is in drawing the tile pattern.

I discovered the beauty of tiled kitchen countertops when I lived in an old house in El Monte California. That's were I first started drawing kitchen scenes and where, for the first time, I sketched in the tile in my drawing and made an amazing discovery! The tile pattern visually added an amazing feeling to my drawing: it filled the page, it added a better scene of perspective, it placed the still life items on a solid foundation, and most importantly, it added a stronger three dimensional feeling.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Table Top Random Still Life Drawing

Here's a new still life drawing I really enjoyed creating. For me its' a random composition---I didn't put this still life together, it just happened. I purchased some fruit at local market for drawing in a still life. I placed the fruit on the dining room table with the intention to create a still life to draw. Well my mom made lunch and she moved everything on the table to the side and when I came to eat lunch this is what I saw on the table. I liked it, I couldn't have come up with it on my own.

Objects and items I wouldn't normally put together on a still life all of a sudden created a nice composition. After lunch, I sat down to draw this scene. I did take out a few items to simplify it, and I purposely included the large white space on bottom to compliment the busy top section and for the viewer to possibly understand that all these items had been pushed aside.

I like it when I find these random compositions. I learn a lot from them. One lesson is my drawings don't necessarily have to stick to a theme to be successful. Drawing these types of scenes with random objects also creates interesting responses and feelings from people viewing my art.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" X 17"

Still Life Drawing With a Slow Tempo

Here's a recent still life drawing I really like! One thing that helps me create these nice still life drawings is setting a pace. For still life drawings, I like to have a slow tempo music, something that can keep me calm. I stay away from Latin salsa and rock music, or even classical music. Lately what I have been listening to is the movie Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince. I have it recorded on the cable box and as soon as I start to draw a still life, I kick on Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince.

This movie has a nice pace, all the dialog and the music is very mellow, perfect for drawing. I also like the visual mood of the movie; it's dark, Gothic and has that classic castle look. So I'll turn this movie on and listen to it while I draw, and sometimes I'll take a break and watch a little Harry Potter.

Well, it's still cold outside and I feel like drawing so I think I'll go look for a still life to draw in the kitchen and listen to Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince.

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Drawing Still Lifes in the Winter Season

I've been drawing a lot of still lifes. I could easily post 2 drawings a day, 7 days a week for this whole month with just still life drawings of fruit and kitchen scenes. One main reason I'm motivated to draw a lot is the weather. I'm in Toledo Ohio and the weather out is bitter cold with snow so not much to do outdoors for me but work inside on drawings during the day when I'm not working on illustrations. I am grateful for the weather, it's making me produce a lot of work and I notice my drawings skills are improving.

Well, just got done shoveling snow, and more snow is expected for this evening so I'm going to sit down and draw a still life.

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Sketch Study of Fruit Pears

The local super markets, like Krogers or Andersons, have been carrying a lot of nice produce especially a nice selection of pears. Lately pears have caught my eye...they have a nice simple shape to draw and they have character.

I really enjoy drawing fruit, I find still life drawings of fruit can have advantages over drawing a portrait or a figure model. One advantage in drawing fruit is that it's more forgiving then drawing a portrait. I can get away with not drawing a pear exactly how it looks. Besides, a still life of fruit will not get tired nor move like models do.

A big advantage to drawing a still life is taking my time creating the piece, or take breaks and come back to the drawing later in the day or the next day, giving me plenty of time to complete a piece. Now I can't get too excited, since there is one disadvantage: fruit will decompose, so I can't take too long to begin or complete a piece.

Squash and Fruit Sketch

On these winter days when I'm not drawing portraits or nude figures, I find time at home to draw still lifes. Lately my still life subjects are fruit, squash, and vegetables and items that catch my attention in the kitchen. I like drawing fruits and veggies...my favorite section of a supermarket like Krogers, Safeway, or Walmart is the produce department. It's exciting for me to see so many natural vibrant colors and beautiful shapes. It's kinda silly but I do spend some time in the produce section marveling at how amazing fruits and vegetable are: red apples, avocados, tomato, pears, pineapples, bananas, peppers, carrots, broccoli, etc...

Click on still life image to enlarge.

Plantain & Pears Sketch

Hi, I haven't posted in a long time. I've been busy working on illustration projects, surfing and working at local SurfSchoolPuertoRico.com and SurfCampPR.net. it's been fun, tiring, and I now have a nice tan :). Here's a sketch i created a couple days ago to get into the still life drawing mode. I'm right now drawing portrait illustrations for a client so last night I was inspired to visited cousins to draw their portraits, it was fun, they got a kick out of me drawing quick sketches of them. I'll prep and post them soon on this blog. Hope everyone is well, keep in touch.

Cheers,

Bernard Garcia

Bananas & Tomatoes in Puerto Rico

Here's my first drawing I created since I arrived last week in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico. I've been wanting to draw but I've been so busy settling in, cleaning my studio and working on projects.

In the evenings, I visit family and I always bring my pad to draw but by then I'm tired and motivation is low. Last night was different, though. I arrived at my aunt's house and I thought, no excuses, sit down and draw and I did. It's always tough to get started, especially after a long day, high humidity and mosquitoes! It's so much easier simply lounging on the front-porch hammock. But once I started a quick gesture sketch to block in the shapes, I got hooked and was determined to finish.

It felt good to finish a piece, it always reminds me how much I enjoy drawing. Plus my family members would walk by and watch me, they thought it was cool. One cousin was cleaning table and moved two tomatoes while I was drawing, I looked up and they were gone! I was shocked and I expressed myself, he apologized and put them back.

I actually worked up a sweat on this sketch, it's different drawing in high humidity, my paper felt different, it doesn't feel crisp like in dry climate and my graphite pencils really felt soft so i would lose my sharp tip fast, and if I pressed too hard my paper would burnish. I approached this drawing like a figure and portrait drawing: with a quick gesture sketch to block-in shapes and to fill the page, then slowly began building tone, added depth with overlapping thick and thin lines, and always kept in mind negative shapes, composition, and design.