October - Week 3

Written 20/10/2025

Sketching ideas

So, my idea for this month is to do a still life of MY desk. Makes sense right, considering the inspiration? However, I worked slightly 'backwards' this time. I first did a whole encompassing sketch and THEN I practised drawing some of the individual components - partly so that I knew what the draw (as since this is a composition as opposed to a true life drawing, I was free to move things around or remove them from view if it didn't 'feel right'). This frist drawing was from life, rather than a photo.

Pencil drawing of a desk with two monitors, a laptop, and dongle, wires and a messy notebook strewn across it — My camera was being very annoying on the left side, managing light is a pain!

So, once I had a concrete idea of my 'frame', I then practised drawing the 'important' features (the monitors, the laptop, the web cam, the dongle and even the notebook). I don't have much to say about them individually, just that individual details regarding wires and keyboard keys are really tricky! Ebel herself has a little abstraction so I can probably get away with that for the final painting XD

After doing these drawings, I took some photos of my desk. To my disappointment the WHOLE desk in the photo was different to my eye view. This shouldn't have surprised me (but it did!) since I have a 3D view of my surroundings whereas a camera flattens it to a 2D plane. So I took two more photos which while being segmented, capture my 'eye view' better. Of course, none of these truly encompass what I can see since I can see 'outside' of the photo as well.

Photo of two monitor on black desk — I will say, it was only after taking this photo that I actually noticed the window behind my desk

Photo of monitor and laptop on black desk — As you can see, the angle can change quite dramatically which I didn't even notice when taking this photo.

Photo of two monitors and laptop on black desk — I had to move back to get all three in frame, which makes it look much 'farther away' than my view when sitting at my desk chair is.

After taking the photos, I went downstairs to my 'art studio' (my kitchen) and I did a practise painting of my desk. A bit like in my April preparation I used 'composited' references - using both my original sketches and the photos as a reference (so I guess calling it a 'still life' is misleading at this point but I think this way is more 'authentic' to what my eyes see rather than just using a photo reference).

Rough acrylic painting of a desk with two monitors, a laptop, and dongle, wires and a messy notebook strewn across it — The colours are very rough (interesting how the walls are actually a light blue IRL but the evening light make them look yellow-ish in the photo, hence why I painted them that colour)

How the process is going

Honestly, not too bad! At the start of this week I would have felt like I was woefully behind but yesterday I just MADE myself work on this for a few hours and I think it really paid off! I now have over a week to get the final painting done (I don't have a canvas yet but it shouldn't be TOO tricky to get one...)

Anything I have learnt

That sometimes you have to just do something (in my case, art) even if you aren't really feeling like it because you will feel better than if you hadn't done it.