9/15 Value Reduction

Wednesday evening the class was presented a brief view of various approaches to using Value.  Value refers to the various gradations of light and dark.  This is different than black and white because black and white are considered colors and all colors also have a value.  For example, pink is a lighter value of red.  The project was to compose a drawing using only black and white.  Therefore, referring to a value scale of 1 to 10- 1 being white, 10 being black- students had to decide if the local value was a 1-5 or a 6-10.  Values between 1-5 remained white; values of 6-10 were filled in black.  The resulting drawings were very abstract due to the merging of positive and negative areas combined with working with flat, unmodulated tonalities.  Furthermore, the imagery "suggests" forms rather than clearly defining them. The large white shape in the drawing above is a view of a pitcher seen from behind. Note how the shadow on the right side of the pitcher merges with the background. Drawing by Devin Eisert.