When someone talks about doing life drawings, it is natural to assume that they are referring to drawing people or live things. For the most part this is true. I've come to realize that it doesn't have to be though.
Not long ago, someone suggested to me that I could use some work on my backgrounds and that they were not believable. That person was 100% correct. Backgrounds are not just about perspective and lines. It's not just about box shapes. A believable space has to have real things in it. The only way to truly understand what this means is to make careful observations.
Sometimes being an artist is like being a scientist. We have to look, study, understand and take notes. The following are my "notes" - drawings of things I'm come in contact with recently.