WED. 2/27 Local Value

Emily Rivera

Local Value refers to the tonalities observed on the objects. For Wed. night students not only addressed a dark object and a light object, the still life had reflections as well. Still life consisted of a bottle with a reflective surface and bone or skull. Emily's drawing is a beautifully, expressive rendering of the categories of light and reflections. Her drawing is rich with a variety of marks as well as tonalities.

Mon. 2/25 Light and Form

Forrest Lucero

Last night students made drawings addressing the categories of light observed on two white objects. First, students made value scales of one to six; one for each category. Then they made drawings of a minimal still life arrangement. Forrest has skillfully rendered the values of the arrangement in front of him. Notice the absence of any intense, dark values. There is a limited value range because the objects are white and the lighting is soft. Furthermore, he has confidently employed additive and reductive techniques.

Fri. 2/22 Subjective Value

Class was cut short yesterday due to a power outage. Before the excitement, students were working on their subjective value drawings. Basically exploring the various techniques of additive and reductive drawing with charcoal and erasers within an abstract composition. For examples check the post from Feb. 13. The Friday class will critique their drawings next week. Pics to follow.

2/20 Value Patterns

Emily Rivera

Last night students addressed local values observed on paper with cut-away holes. The objective was to apply the techniques explored in the previous drawing but this time with an actual still life. Emily's drawing above is a texturally rich drawing with a strong sense of mood. Here handling of the materials is exceptional; combining additive as well as reductive techniques.

Kevin Jansen

Kevin's drawing has a very different sense of light of that exhibited in Emily's drawing. The strong dark background pushes the foreground whereas the still life emerges from the background in Emily's drawing. Some areas of note in Kevin's drawing are the well accented line work as well as the texturally tones and reductive marks in the surface of the paper.

WED. 2/13 Subjective Value cont.

Coral Ortiz

Bradley Williams

Students finished their subjective value project last night. Coral's drawing above exhibits strong contrasting values with an inventive use of transparency. In addition, she has incorporated line as an independent element rather than using it to contain a value or delineate a shape.
Brad's drawing is a swirling space with fluid pathways and passages. He has very effectively used pattern and repetition to create a unified and dynamic composition.

MON 2/11 SUBJECTIVE VALUE

Stephany Valencia Angulo

Last night, we began exploring the various applications for creating values and textures in charcoal. The instructions were to create a design of large and small shapes that fills the entire paper. The image should be one of total fragmentation. The techniques include: 1. flat values 2. modulated values 3. smeared values 4. course values 5. reductive drawing 6. combined techniques (such as smeared base with course tones over the top). The drawing above is unfinished but you can see that Stephany has established a strong base over the entire picture plane. From here, it is all about fine tuning and strengthening the composition through rhythms and similarity.

2/8 PROPORTIONS

Philip Elias

On Friday the morning began with an explanation of "sighting" and finding proportions. Sighting is the technique of measuring and comparing the height and width of an object and the space between objects. In Philip's drawing above you can see the measuring lines he used to block in the handle and compare the measurements of the teapot.

Marina Avila

In the afternoon, we discussed one and two-point linear perspective, in brief, and drew chairs using "sighting" and free-hand perspective. Marina's drawing above is very well proportioned and sets well into the page. Notice how the tonalities in the negative areas hold the chair and add support while making it standout from the background.

WED. 2/6 PROPORTIONS cont.

Ryan Williams

Last night began with a demonstration on One-Point and Two-Point Linear Perspective. Armed with some knowledge of perspective as well as "sighting" (measuring proportions), students made drawings of a chair. Chairs are a great subject because of 1. the combination of positive and negative areas 2. they are proportioned to the size of adult people and 3. there are areas of the chair that seem to contradict the laws of perspective forcing you to observe more closely.  Ryan's drawing above is well proportioned, exhibits a good sense of light as well as texture and has addressed the background.

Mon. 2/4 PROPORTIONS

Elliot Yung

Last night, students made drawings addressing proportions. The approach was to identify the basic forms within the more complex object. In other words, start by drawing the cylinders, cones, spheres, etc. Notice in Elliot's drawing above the placement of ellipses as the structure changes from concave to convex. In addition, you can see the faint lines of the rectangular shape before addressing the curvilinear contours. Remember, it helps to see curves when compared to a straight line or edge.

HOMEWORK #2 Ideal Solids

In your sketchbook, draw the five ideal geometric forms using graphite pencil. Draw one per page. Address the categories of light and accented contours. Note the drawing above has substituted a pyramid for the closed cylinder. You may do so as well.

COMPOSING IDEAL SOLIDS

Students this week made compositions with basic forms: Ideal Solids. The lecture introduced Distal Ques: 1. Atmospheric Perspective 2. Value 3. Location 4. Proportion 5. Overlap 6. Diagonals.

Rachel Edelstein

Mike Loucks

Rachel's drawing above exhibits strong gradations with complementary contour lines. In addition, there is a sense of place and atmosphere by drawing the horizontal lines on the ground plane combined with a dark to light gradation from the bottom to top.
Mike's drawing also exhibits a strong sense of place and atmosphere but with a darker, moodier quality. His use of additive and reductive techniques brings varied textural elements to the image.