Tues. and Wed. Feb 14 & 15, VALUE REDUCTION

Students made drawings from a complex still life arrangement consisting of variously colored items.  We began with gesture studies to warm-up, familiarize and find the most balanced composition.    Once the composition was sketched out, students had to decide whether a particular value fell on the scale from 1-5 (white) or 6 - 10 (black).    This should produce an abstract, flat composition of black and white shapes - NO LINES.

Jack Hamilton's drawing (above) is well balanced between positive and negative areas.  In particular the dominant white (positive) area in the lower left juxtaposed diagonally against the large dark (negative) area in the upper right corner.  Although there are contours where there should be none in this drawing, his use of the shadows in the skull's jaw and cheek area and on the pumpkin are very well done.  

Mariah Cortez Harvey's drawing (below) illustrates perfectly the merging and connecting of the similarly valued shapes.   The presence of the forms is inferred rather than being enclosed by contours.  This is achieved by Mariah's astute observations of the shadows most notably in the centered chess piece, skull and pumpkin.

 Amber Dengler's drawing (above), although in-progress, already reveals a strong directional rhythm. Notice the triangulation between the shadow from the vase on the right over to the shadow from the cube and up to the long vertical shadow on the can in the back.

Patrick Kirven's drawing (below) is also very well composed. Notice the balance between the larger shapes and smaller compartmentalized areas of shapes as in the stacked horizontals on the right.  Furthermore, the drawing exhibits strong spatial separation by placing more white and less black in the foreground and reversing this in the background.