This project will sharpen your skills by rendering a Still Life using Charcoal Pencils. The “Spiritual Still Life” is a personal project because you will be choosing your own Verse, Passage, Poem, or Quote to write on the pages of your book. Later in life, you can see what words shaped you in your life. I used soft, medium, and hard woodless charcoal pencils, stumps, a ruler, 2B pencil, kneaded eraser, and bristol paper to complete this project.
Step 1- Draw the book using the step by step instructions above. For the placement of your book see picture below.
Step 2- Draw the Cross. See the placement of the Cross (above picture) and follow the step by step instructions below.
After you have drawn the Book and Cross, look at the original picture, as a guide, and mark where the candle will be.
Step 3- Draw a rectangle.
Step 4- Turn the rectangle into a cylinder.
Step 5- Draw a small line, representing the wick, and an oval, representing the flame.
Step 6- Draw the melting wax and fine tune the flame and wick, which looks like a braid.
Step 7- Draw lines, lightly, curving with the pages in the book. *Make sure you figure out how many lines you need as well as the spacing. Write your passage. *Make sure your lettering leans back on the page.
Step 8- With a medium charcoal pencil, draw the details of the wooden cross and cloth. Lightly shade in the shadow.
Step 9- With a soft charcoal pencil, lay in the cast shadow. *Make sure you use a ruler. Use a stump to make the cast shadow solid.
Step 10- Using charcoal dust, shade the book. *Charcoal dust can be created by sharpening a woodless charcoal pencil or rubbing a charcoal pencil over sandpaper.
Step 11- With a hard charcoal pencil, carefully write your passage into your book.
Step 12- Trace the candle with a hard charcoal pencil. Shade the candle and flame with a medium charcoal pencil. Use a stump to soften and create form dark to light from the edge towards the center of the candle.
Step 13- With a soft charcoal pencil, shade in the cast shadow from the candle. Make sure it’s darkest where the candle touches the table and gets lighter as you pull away. Use a stump with horizontal strokes as you circle around the candle.
Step 14- With charcoal dust and a tissue, spread the dust around using horizontal strokes.
Step 15- Pinch a kneaded eraser and use the edge to create feathered strokes going around the flame of the candle.