Today's Class- Today's topic was value, meaning use of light and dark in two dimensional art. Besides rendering local color and value, artists have used it to imply form and volume, to emphasize parts of the artwork, add weight to depicted objects, establish time of day, etc. We looked at a few historical slides showing all these ideas and then did drawings using charcoal for the experience of value drawing.
How to make this up- Place a box on a low table, drape it with a white or light colored cloth, and arrange 3 white or light colored objects on and near it. Have a direct light source to create patters of light and shadow. Draw the whole still life set up on a page in your 18"x 24" pad using charcoal, attempting to match the amount and shapes of light and dark from the original. Kneaded erasers work best for erasing the material, and it can be blended with fingers, paper towels, or anything else you want to use. Below are some student examples from earlier semesters:
Use of a background tone is optional, but as you can see, it does help imply space around white objects. You may use contour lines to establish the shapes of your objects, but try to convert the lines to edges of dark shapes in the end. Spend up to 90 minutes on the drawing, or do more than one if you want to get more practice.
Homework- First draft of the museum assignment is due on Nov 2. Don't wait too long to make your museum visit.
For next class 10/5/18- We will begin our next portfolio exercise, which will be our first look at color and make use of a variation on an ancient technique. Mosaics were flat art that could be created on floors, walls, and ceilings, made from large numbers of tiles, stones, pieces of glass, etc, that were arranged to form an image. We will do something similar with small cut pieces of colored paper. Below is an example from a previous semester:
