Still life - Observational drawing - AQA - GCSE Art and Design Revision - AQA - BBC Bitesize (2024)

FAQs

What is observational drawing in GCSE art? ›

Observational drawing is an important element of the GCSE Art and Design course. This type of drawing is when you draw from a primary source, not from a secondary source like a photograph or image.

Still Life Observational Drawing

Well, this technique is called still life and focuses on inanimate objects. Still life contrasts figurative drawing, which is based around living models. It's also a starting point for observational drawing, enabling beginners to learn key skills.

Art is demanding, requires hard work and sometimes the teachers base the marks on the quantity and not the quality of your work. If you are willing to put in at least 4-6 hours of Artwork a week, I'd say you can get a pretty decent grade.

Still life art is drawing or painting objects that are arranged in a certain way. These objects can be anything from fruit to vases . The aim is to look and think about the shapes and size of the objects in front of you.

Observation Drawing in layman's terms means drawing what you see. Observation Drawing or Drawing from Observation comes in many forms, from a simple sketch of something in front of you to the surrounding landscapes or even a reference image from online sources.

Observational drawing is exactly that: drawing what you see. This is harder than it sounds, because our unconscious thought processes often take over, and we draw what we think the subject looks like, rather than capturing specific details.

The new art themes for 2024 sheets are available as a bundle of seven for both Fine Art and Art, Craft and Design. Including… Portrait, Transport, Places and Spaces, Entwined, Fragments, Boundaries Borders and Edges, and Celebration.

Still Life drawing is literally drawing things that are still in life. Artists use the genre, methods, and media to create two-dimensional images of inanimate objects they arrange to focus on specific skills or themes. People and landscape vistas or scenes are not subjects in still life composition.

The still-life genre has remained popular due to its freedom of experimentation, allowing artists to explore different techniques, styles, and themes. There are four main types of still-life art: Flower Pieces, Banquet or Breakfast Pieces, Animal Pieces, and Symbolic Paintings.

The term “still life” describes a work of art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world, such as fruit, flowers, dead game, and/or vessels like baskets or bowls. Looked at another way: still lifes depict things that are “still” and don't move. Still life is a genre that spans art history.

What is the hardest GCSE subject? ›

GCSE Maths is widely agreed as one of the hardest GCSE subjects. Its concepts and requirement for problem-solving skills make it challenging for many students. The curriculum includes topics such as algebra, geometry and trigonometry, which can be complex.

Anyone who teaches (or has done GCSE art) will know it is REALLY difficult to get the top grades and takes a lot of hard work. There are five Grade 9 full project examples on the presentation, including sheets of student's secondary and primary research and artist research.

The themes for a still life painting can be personal, cultural, societal, mythological, religious or philosophical and existential. Or, they can be based on material qualities, such as color or texture.

Still life painting is a genre of painting that represents inanimate objects that the artist has arranged in a visually pleasing composition. The subjects of still life paintings are the objects depicted, including fruit or other food items, flowers in vases, and common objects found in the home.

Still life composition:

Choose objects that have a relationship with one another or a theme, and then set them up how you'd like. Good still life compositions have balance so use the rule of thirds to help establish this balance.

Start with one or two objects, set a timer and try to get across what it is within 30 seconds. Draw the same object three or four times before moving onto the next one. The more you draw it, the faster you learn to observe, meaning you can begin to try to add shading within that same 30 seconds.

The main quality that distinguishes observational drawing from other artistic endeavors is its focus on drawing what is seen while remaining true to the original object.

Observation vs construction

Constructional drawing inherently incorporates observation, as we cannot know which simple forms to start with unless we observe our subject matter carefully. Observational drawing can be done without construction, but if you ask me, that is an approach that is fundamentally incorrect.

For visual artists, observation is visual archaeology or making the unobvious obvious, the unseen seen, the meaningless meaningful, and the overlooked noticed. Bringing the hidden to light, discovering the obscure existent, and turning the irrelevant into highly relevant.