Lock Handle and Key Plate c. 1936

Jack Staloff, in this drawing of a lock handle and key plate, uses pencil to achieve a photorealist tone and texture, but it’s still got this flatness that only drawing can give. The image is all about line and shadow to create depth. I can imagine Staloff studying these metal mechanisms up close, trying to work out how to create a real presence of three dimensions, an idea of shine through layers of graphite. There’s the dark of the graphite, the lightness of the paper, and the slight glow he coaxes from the objects by focusing on the shapes of the light. It’s interesting to think about the relationship between drawing and engineering here. Engineering is about making something functional, whereas drawing is all about representation, but it asks us to consider how closely those two things are actually aligned.