I completed this charcoal still life on 9/14/18. In this piece, one of the techniques I used was using a piece of paper to create a relief, which gave the edges of the cube very sharp, crisp lines. I also tried to create the illusion of a reflection caused by the cube, sphere, and cylinder by lightly coloring in a mirror image of the shapes into the tray below, and even the surface below the tray. I think these techniques were effective and improved the look of the piece overall. A technique I struggled with was using negative space to create shapes, because the area around those shapes was slightly darker and didn't blend perfectly with the rest of the background. This can be seen around the vase and above the cylinder. I drew inspiration from two exemplars of this still life. One had very bold, defined colors that were smoothly blended. The other was made with charcoal and had colors more subtly mixed in with the charcoal. I liked the look of both styles, so I incorporated both into my piece, using some bright colors but also black charcoal mixed with them. This piece started as a 4x4 grid, drawn roughly onto the paper. I used the grid as a guide to place each element of the still life until I had the outlines of everything in place. Then, I started adding values and color to finish the piece. If I started this piece over, I would be more careful with the lines that formed the tray and the line of where the wall met the floor, because they aren't entirely parallel/even with each other. I would also try to make the shape of the vase more even and not as lopsided.