2/10 Value Reduction

Wednesday evening began with a lecture on Value.  Value refers to the gradations between light and dark. Values are influenced by the lighting conditions and the planar structure of an object.  For instance, rectangular objects have hard-edged value transitions; whereas curvilinear objects have smooth, gradual value transitions. 

The evening's drawing was a Value Reduction; a high contrast drawing consisting of two values,  black and white. When addressing values we refer to a scale of 10; 1 being 100% white, 10 being 100% black with 8 shades of gray.  For our drawing, we had to decide whether a value was between 1-5 or 6-10. Values ranging from 1-5 stayed white. Values from 6-10 went black.  The end result is a high contrast drawing that appears flat and somewhat abstract because edges merge and are lost within objects that share the same value. In DrewAlexander's drawing, notice how the two large objects on the left are not separated by a line.  The bucket in front shows a dark value with a light value on top that meets with two stripes on the pale behind. The edge is "implied".

Justin Edwards' drawing has similar areas. Although the drawing is very well composed and the values have been accurately reduced, the white areas in the bottom right corner shouldn't have a line around it. The same is true for the skull and the pale behind it. One solution, would be to have a broken or open line instead of a completely enclosed shape. All in all, still a very good drawing.