Chalk Pastel or Charcoal as a medium of still life painting
While painting a still life may be an organic, seamless, free flowing form of expression for the experienced artist; to an aspiring art student, it is the culmination of a sequence of steps for laying the foundation and building on top of it. I am trying to break down the process of creating a still life painting into a few smaller steps, that have helped me immensely as a beginner. Setting the still life This is done for us by Shruti Ghatak, our mentor and teacher, at the Seattle Visual Arts Studio . The thought that goes behind the setup and the meticulous arrangement makes it a pleasure and challenge at the same time to paint it. It determines the complexity of the painting by the number of objects used, the spatial relationship between those objects, the exact lighting on the setup that creates a very dramatic light & shade effect , folds added on a tablecloth so it creates the desired fluidity. Last but not the least, since we often use perishable objects such as fr