The simplicity of tulips in a jar

Funny how the mind can travel (well, my mind at least, and I know of a few of my sibs whose minds travel the same kind of meandering path!). Someone posted a neat video showing a very highly realistic drawing of a glass of water, and that got me thinking of how enjoyable it is to take a relatively simple object and draw it. I have a wonderful young student, very smart and very visually gifted, who comes for drawing lessons. We decided we would both draw the glass of water. I don't have a photo of his, which was pretty good! But here is mine. 6B pencil plus white Prismacolor on grey paper (the darker area in the foreground is my shadow while taking the pic).

Then I started thinking of the lovely, homey simplicity of flowers in a glass jar, so yesterday my Monday students enjoyed a simple set up from life. The challenge offered was two-fold: aim to make the water in the jar believable, and keep it all simple. Our efforts below - pretty cheery!

Depending on the angle you are viewing from, expect to get some refraction of image within the water, so the stems may not quite line up. Also, the stems in the water are lighter in value. Notice the meniscus effect at the water's surface. Lots of things to see! Plus, the tulips opened up more and more as we painted!