Still Life Art

If you’ve been to Madrid, you know the enormous selection of activities and sightseeing treasures the city has to offer you. If you haven’t, make Madrid your travel destination for a touch of the art world. If you’re an art lover like many tourists that travel to Spain, you won’t have far to look to find some of the best art in the world. After enjoying some of the local recipes for sangria, visit The Queen Sofia Art Museum, located near the metro stations and the Atocha train. It has such an abundance of famous art works; you’ll need more than one day to view everything. Some of the featured art works are by greats like Miro, Picasso or Solana.

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, which was opened in 1992, is considered the museum for 20th century art. Many art connoisseurs consider it the most prestigious art collections in Europe. One of the highlights of the museum is the famous Pablo Picasso piece, Guernica. This 1937 painting got its inspiration from Picasso’s feelings on surrealism and the Nazi bombing of the town of Guernica. If you are a fan of Picasso, and I don’t know who wouldn’t be, there are many pieces of his work from a young age right up to maturity.

The museum is in a building designed in the 18th that was once a hospital. It was scheduled to be demolished when they decided to turn it into a house of art. Renovations and additions were added to the original building to make it what they needed to become a museum. Some thought it odd that an old building would be used to house modern art, but the plans proved to be exactly what they wanted. It was declared a national museum in 1988.

Queen Sofia offers the art lover a variety from the late 19th century right up to the most recent contemporary and modern works of art. If Solana pieces are what you are interested in, you’ll get a glimpse of The Chorus Girls, Café Pombo, and don’t forget The Meeting of the Pharmacy.

Most famous artists are represented by more than one piece of work, such as Miro whose work Man with a Pipe, Fleur, Toile and Escargot are all on display. They may have been painted in the 20s or 30s, but still manage to interest art lovers. The same can be said for Dalí, whose works spans fro his 1927 Still Life by the Light of the Moon to his 1945 Galarina portrait. You will be amazed at his realistic 1951 and 1955 paintings of the Crucifixion.

Paintings are not the only objects of interest to the tourists and visitors. The 46,000 square yard exhibit space is filled with many art objects as well as pottery and porcelain. They also have a library there in case you wish to look up some of the paintings or artists. You can find interesting reading and take it to the cafeteria they also have for your dining pleasure. If you happen to be traveling during the holiday, spend the perfect holiday in Madrid.

I’m going to start by saying that I assume you have your pencils, drawing paper and erasers ready, so I’m going to skip all that and plunge right in to show you how you can sketch your horse in just a few minutes.

Yes, I did say in just a few minutes. In fact, it’s important that we complete the sketch as quickly as we can. Why is that so? That’s because unlike a still object (as in drawing still life), live horses move around.

It’s just like trying to draw a baby. Since a baby can’t keep still, and you can’t tell it to keep still, the best time to draw a baby is when it’s asleep.

But we don’t want to draw a sleeping horse do we? We want to draw a real live, energetic and lively horse! And to capture that in your sketch, there’s no better way than to use quick pencil strokes to capture the life, energy and movement of the horses.

There are three specific areas that you need to pay special attention to though. The first area is the eyes, the second is the rippling muscles, and the third (which is the most important) is the hair on the horse.

The eyes of a horse is what makes your sketch comes to life. You start by drawing the body and then add the eyes and the drawing immediately comes to life! Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself!

Secondly, you will have to capture the rippling muscles of the horse to make it look real. Horses are powerful and magnificent looking creatures. The key is to draw them lean and fit. After all, horses do exercise a lot.

And when they prance, trot or gallop, their magnificent mane of hair flows behind them. The mane and the tail makes up a large part of your drawing, so you seriously need to capture the beauty of the flowing hair.

If you can capture these three elements, then I give you an A grade. Now go show off your great looking horse or pony to the whole world!

Here’s some tips for setting up and shooting still life subjects indoors.

1. Use Indirect Natural Light

Position your subject so it’s lit using the natural light from a nearby window. Indirect and soft light is best. If there’s too much direct sunlight coming through the window, cover the window with a white sheet to diffuse the light.

2. Illuminate from the Side

Give your subject extra dimension by using side lighting.

3. Brighten Your Subject

Use a reflector or white paper to lighten your subjects shadowy back or side.

4. Create a Backdrop

Use a backdrop to remove the clutter from your image and to let your subject stand out. Choose black, white or a color that complements your subject. A swath of velvet or velour creates a nice soft background. You can use mounting or mat board, un-creased butcher paper, a table cloth and even a shower curtain as your backdrop. If you’re shooting something small, a jacket or shirt may be large enough to do the trick.

5. Position Your Backdrop

Keep the backdrop two to three feet away from your subject. This minimizes shadows your subject casts onto a light colored backdrop and keeps a dark backdrop dark. It also lets you set your depth of field so the backdrop’s texture doesn’t show on the image unless you want it to. If your backdrop is white, you can use a reflector or white paper to reflect light onto your backdrop to keep it nicely lit. Beware of light reflections from your backdrop since they’ll compete with your subject.

6. Dull Your Table Surface

Make sure the surface your subject sits on does not reflect light at the camera when the surface will be included in the image. You may want to cover the surface with something that is non-reflective.

7. Use a Tripod

Use a tripod to record a sharper image. If you don’t have a tripod, see if you can create a substitute by setting the camera on something. Use a bag of dry beans or rice from your pantry to support the camera at an angle of your choice.

8. Use Your Camera’s Self-Timer or Remote Control

Reduce camera shake by using the self-timer or a remote control to trigger the shutter. Every little thing helps when you’re trying to capture a sharp image. The simple action of pressing the shutter button can make your camera move as you take the shot.

Still Life is an art term, that refers to a special kind of picture. It represents an arrange of inanimate objects (hence the name) such as a bowl, a cup or fruits. Usually the arrangement is made according to the artist’s purpose. A Still life pencil drawing can be symbolic, with an underlying meaning, or aesthetic, in which case the purpose is to communicate beauty.

About Still Life Pencil Drawings

A still life work can have many purposes. If we work in color it can help us understand how color acts in real life, how the light bounces, and how an arrangement of colors can bring a special mood to the painting. Using colored pencils we can begin studies about color, and work in the finest details. But in the case of black and white pencil drawings, the purpose of the still life pencil drawing is different. A still life pencil drawing can help us study shapes and see how they interact on our eyes, we learn how to measure correct proportions and how they can make the difference betwen a good drawing and a remarkable drawing.

When we get into shading, we then study tonal values. There are no colors here so we must learn how to see things in black and white mode, and correctly define which are going to be the dark and light areas on our still life pencil drawing.

Still lifes are the most available subjects in the world, and while some people may consider still life drawing boring, the fact is they teach us a lot. When you have no idea of what to draw, just make an arrangement of things you have at your house and start your still life pencil drawing. Don’t take just as bring cups and fruits, but instead focus on what you can learn from this. If you keep practicing on drawing still life scenes you will find out that you have a much better understanding on how light works, and how objects relate to each other within a composition and color scheme.

When it comes to simple basic Still-Life Tabletop Photography, as far as the novice ‘wanna-be-photographer’ is concerned there is often a mental block, when really it’s quite simple, so much so that if you start to do it professionally, after a few years the trick is to stay awake.

I asked UK photographer Phil Selfe why he sold his very successful studios a few years back and he answered, “I just got bored Rog”.

I remember when he was my assistant back in the seventies, I would set up the first still-life shot, then say to him, “Shoot off the rest Phil” and go out for the rest of the day.

Of course not all still-life is so mundane and in fact some still-life shots are very exacting, requiring careful planning, construction of the set and attention to lighting details, which would include running test shots to acquire the effect that was needed. Sometimes this could take a day or two to successfully complete.

If you were shooting room sets as I use to do some time back, this would require a lot more work and would involve the use of many assistants, carpenters for set building and in many cases taking days to successfully complete. You would also need some serious studio space to accomplish this type of specialist work, as I use to have.

But as UK comedian Ronnie Corbett would say “I digress”, lets get back to the basics of still-life tabletop photography.

For lighting you will need an attachment to your studio flash unit called a ‘Soft Box’. This is as it sounds, a box constructed in fabric, which is reflective on the inside, with a diffuse panel at the front, providing a directional soft defused light to illuminate the subject. An umbrella attachment is not sutible for this work as the spread of light is to wide.

If you don’t have a studio flash unit you can buy a soft box that will attach to a hammer head flash gun. If you have a second flash head you can put this to good use by simply bouncing it off the ceiling, to help fill any shadow area.

What you will need for Still-Life Tabletop Photography.:

1. Medium Format Camera and a ‘macro’ lens (close focusing). Better still a 5×4inch. View camera, which has tilt and swing front and rear panels for ease of focusing.

Did you know that only one in fifteen NEW cameras sold to day, are film cameras, this means there are great bargains to be had in the use film camera market, take advantage of that right now.

2. Soft Box Attachment.

3. Tripod, a good solid one.

4. Lighting Stands, you will need two or three.

5. White Card as reflectors or as a background, size 1mtr.x70cm. from your art shop, get three.

6. Background. muslin or material, off white or neutral in color.

7. Low table about 2ftx2ft. 18 inches high.

8. Light Meter for flash exposures.

What to do:

Set up your soft box at an angle of 45 degrees to the left or right of camera and slightly to the back of the set. This should be for small still-life objects and the light should be no more than a meter away from the subject, so you are able to stop down, (set the lens aperture), to at least f22, to get as much depth-of-field as possible so the image will be in sharp focus. If you have a second flash head, use it bounced off the ceiling to help to fill any shadow area.

Fix your reflector, (white card), the opposite side to the flash and an additional reflector the other side underneath the soft box.

Use a good lens hood, such as a bellows lens hood, to keep the light from the soft box hitting the lens. It’s also good practice to fix a small piece of black card, suspended over the lens of the camera to prevent any light causing flare from the lens, taking care that the black card doesn’t clip the picture area, or effect you meter reading.

Make test exposures to find out the best result and after some experimentation, you will find the results that you want. It’s also good to “bracket” your exposures, which means to make three exposures, one at half a stop, (f.stop number), above the reading and one at half a stop below, choosing the best density of the three exposures made. Most pro photographers, even after a tests, use this as standard practice. Film is cheap and digital is nothing.

Now if you think that there is some other ‘magic’ formula that the pros use to shoot simple still life, your WRONG. This is the most used pro photo still-life set up, but of course there many exceptions to the rule and not all still life work is table top.

Final comment: The best way to become an accomplished photographer in still-life or other work, is go work for one as an assistant. It’s the way most good pro photographers make it.

Happy shooting.

Getting the background right in the studio can be difficult. The home studio often suffers from lack of space, unsightly background clutter and poor surfaces for lighting. But you can enhance your shots by manipulating the background in the following way:

1. Place a sheet behind the subject that is the color of the background that you need. White is good as it can be lit according to your taste. But any color will do and will give a consistent appearance

2. Place the sheet on the ground and drape it over something taller than the subject

3. Get yourself plenty of duct tape, clips and pins to hold the background

4. You can make a sturdy and effective frame for the sheets by using plastic plumbing pipes which fit together easily and have connectors which can allow you to make any shapes or angles

5. Make sure the sheet lays in a smooth curve behind the object – there should be no edge. This will ensure that the background is not uneven or unsightly

6. Using 2 flashes – one each side of the subject - will ensure no ugly r distracting shadows behind it

7. Using a white sheet will enable you to put color gels over the flashes to change the color of the background according to your taste

8. You can buy ready-made colored backgrounds – these are better than the homemade sheets but considerably more expensive. You will also need more space for construction and storage

9. For smaller objects, you can try a ‘light tent’ or ‘light dome’. This is effectively a big, white, translucent dome or tent that goes over the object. The camera lens points into the dome. The lighting is outside. The tent diffuses and disperses the light from outside giving an even and softer effect.

10. You can buy a light tent or dome but they can be expensive. Make one with sheets draped over chairs.

11. At worst, you can remove backgrounds in an image editing program such as Photoshop

The great thing about studio work is that you can take your time and experiment with your set-up. Try different lighting effects and angles to get the effect that pleases you.

French painter Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848 and then moved to Peru with his family when he was only three years old. Growing up in Peru provided much excitement and had a great impact on him as little boy. When he turned 17, he joined the Navy and went to sea for about six years. He returned to France after his voyages, more mature and filled with impressions of strange and beautiful lands.

He did not immediately become an artist. He chose to settle in Paris and learn to become a stockbroker. At 35, much to his family surprise, Paul gave up his career to devote his life to painting in order to show the simple beauty he saw in the lives of primitive peoples. He was quite accustomed to success and believed that he would succeed in painting. Unfortunately, his wife saw it as an unnecessary indulgence and never forgave him for a “selfish” decision. Years later, the couple separated.

Paul had always enjoyed the art of the French artists known as the impressionists. He took up painting right away and in 1818 he exhibited his works with other impressionists. However, the reality of living an artist’s life shocked Gauguin. He enjoyed his former comforts so much that he had difficulty adjusting to his new life in poverty. By 1886, the expense and pressure of city life had become so demanding that Gauguin decided to leave Paris and live in an artist’s colony in Brittany. After a year, he decided to travel to Panama where he worked as a laborer. Then he went to the tropics, to Martinique, where he lived and painted in freedom. However, after a year of living in Martinique, Gauguin was forced to return to Brittany, penniless and quite ill.

In October, 1888 he visited another famous artist, Vincent van Gogh, in the latter’s home in Arles, France. Gauguin’s stay with Van Gogh proved to be a powerful collaboration of sorts; it was said that they frequently disagreed and were distressing to live with. On good days, however, they managed to learn from each other and produced some of their best work during these times. It is said that Gauguin returned to Paris after Van Gogh’s “incident”. Gauguin slowly broke away form the impressionist movement and painted “Vision after the Sermon”, where he attempted to externalize the feelings of his subjects. This painting is important in his career because it ushered in a new style that is now called “Symbolism”.

However, it was a combination of the beautiful surroundings of Brittany and his exotic voyages that led them to develop his own unique style. Gauguin devoted his time painting portraits, landscapes and still lifes as simple forms in pure and intense colors surrounded by black outlines. Many critics remark that the graceful mess and simplicity of the painting is communicating the artist’s strongest feelings towards the exotic and the natural.

In 1891, Gauguin saved enough money to go to the primitive South Sea island of Tahiti. At first, the artist was extremely happy in the midst of the forests, the strange flora and fauna and the island’s beautiful people. He decided to stay and share the simple life of the natives from there on. However, throughout his stay, Gauguin was tormented by severe depression and tried to battle drug addiction.

Most of Gauguin’s paintings capture the beauty of Tahitian culture and its women, but seemed to show that the artist was really not completely happy nor understood in this primitive society. After many years of poverty and sickness, Gauguin died from heart failure, alone and unaware of the mark his art would later make on the 20th century.

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As far as oil painting goes it’s not as scary as some people think. If you want to create the visions that are in your head, be it fantasy art warrior women, pictures of cats, drawings of scorpions, or if you hope to one day obtain landscapes still life portrait commissions, whimsical angel drawings, you might want to consider oil painting as your goal. It is to me, the most respected medium.

It’s true! Painting with oils may seem way scary, but it isn’t at all really!

Lots of people get stuck into doing acrylics, watercolors or feel content to just draw. That is fine of course, those mediums are great, but oil painting need not be excluded because you think it is too hard.

I confess! When I first started painting with oils? I felt it was just so overwhelming to begin.

One thing I would do to get over fear of painting, and this is not exclusive to oils, is be a Jackson Pollack for the day. You can still slather on the paint to create pictures of cats, drawings of scorpions or fantasy fairies, just be loose about it. No pressure for realism.

Turn on your favorite music, pump up the volume and get ready for an art dance, or should we call it a dance of learning to play with art?

First find a piece of plywood lying around, or anything really. Search out some old house paint or go to the hardware store and buy some of their sale stuff.. just a few colors is fine. It does not have to be a major expense, in fact, that is the point, in order to free yourself up, it needs to be as little expense as possible. Find some old junk.. old jewelry, even Christmas wrapping paper or weird things you come across. Next take it all outside and PLAY! Just PLAY.. no pressure for anything to turn out. Dump stuff on the plywood and be a Pollack for the day. Let it dry and then go back and play again over the same piece, building up a patina effect. Metallic paints are great for this too!

OK, so after that you should feel a certain sense of freedom about painting. Now lets try some oils on canvas! How fun! (Yup no grumbling, this is gonna be fun.)

When oils are thinned down with turpentine they have a lot more ease. You can make it all really sloshiy (my word for messy) and PLAYFUL! That doesn’t mean you only use thinned down oils but just think about that and use it as you will. Start out thin and end with thick.

First paint a background on as large a canvas as you can. The larger the better. I find that if you paint a small work it is actually more scary. You tend to tighten up and fret more. When the canvas is big you KNOW you have to really get in there and paint or it will take you forever. There is freedom to it.

Try ’sketching’ with your sloshy colors and oil paints. Starting with your darkest colors ’slather’ on your base, be it fantasy art warrior women, images taken from female photography, or lords of the middle ages PLAY. Then let it sit for a day or two. Go back after some drying time and add your medium toned colors, then let that sit.. give yourself a rest for a fresh look at your progress as well as some drying time. Lastly add your lights and highlights.

Cover it up and be a touchy artist! Don’t let anyone see your work and/or let them lend comment. Others might sway your confidence because they cannot possibly see what is inside your heart and the end result. You may not either but the FEELING is there.. only worry about the feeling. Matisse said to feel the colors. Play with the colors as you create to one day produce fantasy art warrior women, pictures of lambs or landscapes still life portrait commissions is that is your goal. Learn to Play! This is what will set you free to paint by instinct rather than rules.

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