Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #246: Still Life

Published on by Yinglan

Happy Sunday! Patti is the host for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge and it’s all about Still Life.

Still life… I have heard these 2 words since my middle school art class. I only remember doing 2 projects in that class and each took half of a semester. The first one was to draw a sphere and a cylinder with a cube positioned behind the two shapes in a triangular formation, first with drawing pencils and then charcoal.

The teacher said each of our perspectives is different as we’re not all sitting at the same place. Therefore, we must draw the shadow where I saw it.

I’ve mentioned in a previous challenge I can’t draw even if my life’s depending on it. I remember seeing those shapes made my ever-so-technical brain go crazy. All I could see were a circle, a cube, and a cylinder. I couldn’t see the shadows the lamp was casting on the shapes.

Eventually, after countless sketches, I figured it out and finally turned the drawing in for a grade. I remember the grade was average and my grade for the class was some of the lowest I’ve ever gotten. I didn’t ask to be in the art class. It was randomly chosen as the school didn’t allow students to hand-pick his/her elective classes.

If I could’ve picked, I would’ve gone with choir or woodshop. That is the type of person I am – the kind who rather work with machineries who can cut me in half than be in a class where the dangerous thing might be stabbing myself with a pencil.

25 thoughts on “Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #246: Still Life”

  5. I know what you mean about the art class! My brain didn’t understand it when I was a kid and neither did anyone explain what to look for, one was just supposed to see and draw. Of course the naturally talented ones know instinctively what to do, but the rest are on their own. I am so thankful to the technology and those people who create so much video content for teaching art! Still not good at drawing but can at least understand the concept🙂.
    Enough ranting…I love your photos Yinglan 🙂

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    1. I know, right? I couldn’t understand what people were seeing when all I saw were shapes and the shadows seemed like it was dancing from one spot to another. It’s never the same and it’s frustrating. I’m so glad there’s technology now that I can take a photo and turn it into art with Photoshop or Lightroom. No more drawing for me. 😀

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  7. Hi Yinglan. Don’t you hate it when you can’t follow your true interests in school? I wish you could have taken classes in what you wanted. Your still life images this week are wonderful! I love the light and shading in the moon shot.

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    1. Thank you. 🙂
      For some reason, the schools in California don’t let students choose their classes. Even in high school, I got put into an intermediate art class where we have to learn to draw blind. Maybe they thought “third time’s the charm?” I think I create better art when I’m not working with a blank sheet of paper.
      Maybe it’s only this school district. How did the administrative staff know what the student wants?

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  8. Beautiful photos. The art teacher was right on. none of us see the same image from where we sit. Life is like that, isn’t it. I would have enjoyed woodshop class with you, only it wasn’t encouraged for females in my school at the time. A shame really. I am glad things have changed. The last photo is stunning.

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    1. I got a taste of woodshop in my senior year of high school when I finally got to pick a class I like. Even with all the power tools, I felt relax in there and even made myself a wooden mechanical pencil, which I still have. Just wish I wasn’t sick on the day I was making the pencil, despite wearing goggles, I got a nose full of wood dust. I can’t even tell you how long I was blowing my nose and the tissue was still fill of wood dust. That’s the only lesson I learned that day – never use a power sander with a runny nose. 😆

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