Every art teacher is going to ask you to create a still life.
It sounds so simple, but there’s a lot that goes into creating a dynamic still life that grabs the viewer’s attention and urges him or her to linger over your work.
Still life painting and drawing is the art student’s ever-present standby.
You may not have the opportunity or desire to paint or sketch the human form, landscapes are difficult if it’s inclement weather or if you live in a city, and you may not have pets or wildlife available as willing models.
Enter the ubiquitous still life. There’s more to a successful still life than throwing a few posies in a vase, rolling an apple or two into the space and commencing to fling paint. Here are a few tips for creating a composition that’s dynamic, vibrant and memorable.
Lighting
A successful composition of any kind requires good lighting. You need to determine and establish a strong, directional lighting source to create shadows and highlights.
A single light set a few feet away to one side of the setup will give you good directional lighting. If your studio has a lot of natural light or other lighting, you may need to close the curtains or turn off other illumination to minimize the diffusion from other light sources.
If you do a lot of still life paintings, you may want to create a lighting box for your compositions. With this five-sided box, you have complete control of where your lighting emanates and eliminates unneeded lighting.
If you don’t want to go all out for a light box, you can get creative with umbrellas or sheets draped over strategically arranged furniture.
Background
Your background is very important. It sets up the scene. Rather than leaving it blank and lifeless, make it an integral part of the painting.
An effective but over-used trick is to drape a cloth behind your setup. While you may not want your background to compete with the focal point of your composition, you could incorporate a window or other architectural feature, a chair, the room itself or wallpaper to add interest.
You can also use colors from your palette to create an abstract interplay of light and darks. Shadows from your composition thrown onto the background can be useful to liven up the negative space, or you can change the viewpoint from looking straight on to looking down upon your composition. Voilà – now there’s no need for a separate background!
Variation
Repeating identical images may have worked for Andy Warhol, but you should change up the sizes, textures, shapes and colors of the components of your composition. You can also vary the texture and tone of the objects. Dark, light, shiny and soft items add additional variety and keep the audience’s eye moving over the space.
Sure, you can use an assortment of the same type of object. For example, apples are easy to acquire and come in all shapes and sizes. You can create an interesting composition with an array of apples. Just be sure they vary in size, color, shape and perspective.
Elevation
A variety of elevations adds interest to a composition. Whether you use some tall objects among short item or vary the height of similar sized objects by setting them on top of boxes, books or other stands, a range of heights help maintain the viewer’s interest.
Focal Point
Your painting should be more than just a helter-skelter jumble of pleasing shapes. One thing should stand out as the central character of the production. It’s the thing that caused the viewer to pause in his walk past your painting and made him stop for further inspection. The other components are important as the supporting cast and the variety of their texture, color and size reinforce the composition to keep it interesting.
Theme
The theme can be almost anything if you have the objects to support it. I once did a still life for a sibling that was composed of things we both loved as children. The theme may have been lost on the rest of the world, but to my sister it was instantly apparent.
A scene featuring old-fashioned gadgets and tools surrounding a mason jar of wildflowers is a charming, homey kitchen theme. Start with your defining piece and add items that support it. Musical memorabilia and sheet music to go with a clarinet or sunglasses and flip-flops to reinforce a pail of freshly gathered seashells are just a couple ideas to get you started.
Quick Tips
- Use a viewfinder to audition your composition. Cut a rectangle from a piece of cardstock and use it to fine-tune your setup
- If you’re painting from natural light, take a few snapshots. The light source will shift and fade as the day goes on
- Arrange your grouping on a lazy Susan. You can rotate your composition to find just the right position without moving
- Natural shapes are much more forgiving than man-made items. If you’re a little off in drawing a piece of fruit or a flower, no one will notice. However, if you’re off just a smidge painting a canister or vase, it’s pretty hard to chalk up to artistic license
- If you’re planning a complex still life with many components, minimize the number of colors on your palette for instant unity
- Objects in a still life should not “kiss.” They should either overlap or be obviously separate
- Use a full range of values, from light to dark, to add interest to your piece. All light, all dark or all mid-tone values in a painting is just boring
