1st Week Art Project - Homework -Simplicity

For our first homework assignment, we were to draw something from home and from "still life". Something that said something about us. So I decided to draw a stalk of bamboo that I've managed to keep alive for more than a year. This is a feat for me! I've killed a cactus :)

My eyes are always drawn to the most simple things in life. I find true beauty in the simplicity of objects. Much like in "American Beauty" where the creepy guy shows a film he made of a plastic bag blowing around in the wind.

Plus I look at Bamboo as being very hearty and sturdy and extremely hard to get rid of once it's rooted itself. Much like myself really. I've been through a lot of hard times in my life, and yet here I still am. Clinging to the skin of this planet and refusing to die. So, hence...the Bamboo.


This first picture is the beginning of the drawing. It's the stalk in a glass vase. Stones will be added later in the bottom

A close up of the vase. This is what took me the longest to get the shape and perspective right. I spent easily 2 hours on the vase alone.

This is of the top of the stalk. I should have drawn it going off the page, but instead I just stopped it. I am not happy with it entirely, but I refuse to change it!

Completed project turned in for a grade. The rocks were HARD. They aren't perfect but I put a lot of detailing in the stones. Crevices and shading. I didn't put it on a base, so it's just floating out in space.

A close up of the vase filled with stones. I may go back in later and add the roots coming up into the stones, but I may just leave it as it is. First piece, aptly named "Simplicity"