Decorative still life drawing black and white. Unreal reality

Chess stylization of still life. Master class with photos

Thank you for your attention! I wish you all creative success!

Students perform decorative still life at an art school using the following method:

1. Arrangement of objects on a sheet.
2. Transformation (form stylization).
3. Overlapping or intertwining silhouettes with each other.
4. Filling silhouettes with texture and decorative solutions.

As you know, a still life is a production of inanimate objects. In easel painting, still lifes are painted traditionally: they sculpt the volume of objects, convey chiaroscuro, linear and aerial perspective, space... In decorative still life, this becomes unimportant. The shape of the depicted objects becomes flat and conventional. There is no chiaroscuro. Instead, each silhouette is worked out decoratively.

The transformation of form needs to be discussed separately. Its essence lies in transforming the original form of an object into a conventional one. That is, the drawing is simplified and stripped of unnecessary details. The form is reduced to a conditionally geometric one, that is, it is based on simple geometric shapes (circle, rectangle, triangle...). For example, a jug can be composed of a circle and a cylinder, and top and bottom can be completed with circles or ellipses. Thus, only the nature of the object remains. He must be recognizable. And the contours will already be transformed and brought to the general style.

Overlaying or braiding silhouettes- This is a technique in decorative art and design. The overlapping of silhouettes on top of each other is understandable by definition - this is when objects obscure each other and the image becomes, as it were, multi-layered. But braiding is more difficult. For example, when part of a jug is obscured by an apple, the intersecting parts of the jug and apple may be rendered by the artist in a completely different color. Objects become as if “transparent” and their intersecting parts are visible to the viewer. The silhouettes of objects are intertwined in such an intricate way that, as a result, they are sometimes difficult to distinguish. And this gives decorative work a special appeal.

Filling the outlines of objects with texture- is not particularly difficult. You can spray paint, you can lay the paint in chaotic strokes, etc. But filling the silhouette with a decorative solution is more difficult. The artist comes up with some kind of “ornament”, although this word is not entirely suitable here. He fills the silhouette with this “ornament”. This “ornament” is created on the basis of a generative line. A formative line is a line that forms the outline of an object. For example, the outline of a Greek amphora will be gracefully curved. Therefore, the interior decoration of the silhouette will be based on lines curved in a similar way. Individual parts of such decoration of objects, as well as the objects themselves, can be braided. Also, you can skip the literal ornament between them. Therefore, this type of decoration is not just about filling silhouettes with texture or coloring alone. This is a more complex process. But also more spectacular, on which the essence of a decorative still life is based.

A black and white still life can be painted in a variety of ways. It can look like a standard pencil sketch or an interesting illustration of spots or letters. Today we will talk about different techniques that you can easily repeat at home.

Pattern with spots

Black and white still life is most often made decorative. Why? Yes, because it looks so advantageous. A realistic image, devoid of color, may look appropriate if it is a portrait, illustration or something similar with many details. A realistic still life is not very interesting to look at. That's why many artists prefer decorative works. A still life in black and white is very simple to draw. First you need to build a composition. You can draw from life, which will be easier, or you can come up with a setting in your imagination. In our case, there is a jug and a bowl of apples on the table. A bow and drapery hang on the wall. When a suitable place for all this has been found on the sheet, and the details have been worked out, you can proceed to dividing the objects into parts. Moreover, this should be done not in a chaotic manner, but clearly thought out so that the white parts are adjacent to the black ones and not a single item is lost.

Line drawing

A black and white still life can be painted using various techniques. One of them is the depiction of a drawing using lines. To draw such a picture, you need to take objects that have a clearly defined texture. If this is not the case, then the relief will have to be invented. You need to start drawing a black and white still life by building a composition. First we outline all the objects. In our case, this is a mug with flowers, apples and a wooden table. After all the objects have taken their place, we begin to work out the shape, and then the details. The final action is the image of the texture. The mug acquires horizontal stripes, flowers and apples - a cut-off border. It is imperative to show the texture of the table. It is advisable to combine horizontal and vertical lines in a still life so that the objects do not merge, but stand out against each other.

Letter drawing

This image will appear as a black and white graphic. The still life consists of letters that smoothly turn into words and even sentences. How to draw such an original decorative composition? First you should draw a sketch. Outline the cup and newspaper that will lie in the background. After this, you need to divide the drawing by tones. For example, coffee in a mug should be the most saturated in tone, the second place is taken by the falling shadow, and the third place is taken by one’s own. This way you can divide the entire sketch with lines. After this, if you are confident in your abilities, you can paint over the drawing with a gel pen, and if you are worried that something will not work out, first do the underpainting of the letters with a pencil. However, in this case you will have to outline the letters with ink. A gel pen does not draw well on a pencil. Letters should be placed according to the shape of objects. And you definitely need to play with height and width. One word can be very narrow, while another is two or three times larger. You can encrypt some phrases in such a picture, or you can write arbitrary words.