VALUE: Texture

Bret Hardesty

Karlo Pillula

Last night the class made charcoal drawings addressing value and textural elements. The intensity of Bret's drawing (top) is attributed to the high contrast of the dark background and the light foreground. He has very skillfully rendered the textures without sacrificing the volume of the objects.
Karlo's drawing exhibits a much different mood and lighting. The entire drawing itself is very textural. The variable tonalities and grainy texture of the space provide an air of a cold earthen dwelling candle lit or moonlit by an open window.

VALUE: Rendering Light

Last night the class made drawings addressing light patterns. The objective was to emphasize the light rather than the volume of the objects. Students employed one of two techniques: a single directional hatch or scribble gesture. Note: Somehow I only photographed the scribble technique but there are examples from previous semesters on this blog.

Drew Horton

Drew has a very animated approach to the scribble technique. The lines are tight and the values are high in contrast. Her style is fluid. The drawing appears to be a reflection in water of the still life setting on a bank.

Kendra Juul

Kendra's lines are scratchy and open. The drawing appears to be incised into the surface of the paper. She has very effectively used advancing and receding values to establish depth.

Molly Gallagher

Molly's tightly webbed lines create the appearance of a soft texture. The dark tops of the objects has the appearance that they are illuminated from below. The lighter, almost washed-out, negative areas makes the still life glow.

LOCAL VALUE

Ashley Garr

Megan Svendsen

Last night the class made drawings addressing Local Value. Local value refers to the quantity of lightness or darkness of the tonalities and colors of an object. The objective was to clearly exhibit that the still life consists of one dark object, one gray and one white.
Ashley has boldly established the contrasting values illustrating the light and volumes of the objects.
Megan too has skillfully illustrated the values yet the emphasis in her drawing is on the light patterns themselves rather than the volume of the objects. This is created by using diagonal hatching instead of following the cross-contours.

VALUE: Finding the Light in White

Alondra Maravilla

Ray Colby

Last night the class made drawings from white objects with the goal of addressing the Categories of Light. Alondra's drawing at the top is rich and sharp. Rather than drawing the cast shadow as a solid she has applied a gradation which is less disruptive to the negative space and edge of the composition.
Ray's drawing exhibits a very soft and calming light. He has effectively addressed the light patterns using a limited high key value range.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS: Cropping

Karlo Pillula

Megan Svendsen

Last night the class made drawings from a single item with the objective of activating the negative space. Karlo's drawing at the top is cropped dividing the page in half diagonally. The wide open space at the bottom of the composition draws the viewer into the image. The hammer appears to be emerging or falling from the top mass of lines and atmosphere.
Megan's drawing of plumbing parts is effectively placed on a tilted plane dividing the page into a series of triangles. The zoomed in view allows for the repeating nut shapes to establish a rhythm. Both students have skillfully used their materials to address atmosphere as well as the light and volume of the objects.

SUBJECTIVE VALUE

Chani Spitzer-Christenson

Molly Gallagher

Last night students made drawings from their imaginations. The objective was to explore a wide range of value and textural applications (i.e. additive, reductive, smearing, stamping, smooth, course, etc.) Chani has made a very dynamic drawing of flat tonal areas, modulated areas and some patterns as well. The criss-crossing white paths are complemented by the radial patterns creating a fan-like movement. Molly's drawing, by comparison, is rich with invented textures. The boat-shaped eyelids revolve around the central bull's eye pattern. The diagonals organize the negative space while drawing your attention inward.

LINEAR PERSPECTIVE: Eye Level

Linear Perspective is the process of creating the illusion of depth. Class began with a discussion and demo on One-point and Two-point linear perspective and the importance of eye level. The main tenets of linear perspective is 1. it establishes the viewer's location 2. parallel lines will appear to converge meeting at vanishing points located on the horizon line (eye level) 3. Objects of approximate equal size will appear to get smaller as they recede away from the viewer. Armed with the knowledge of the distal cues and linear perspective, the class made "free-hand" drawings of blocks.

Adolfo Lugo

Adolfo has made a drawing that emphasizes the shape relationships of the objects and space. All of the planes have been boldly defined with contours and contrasting values.

Jonathan Branscum

Jonathan has complemented the forms and space with textural elements. By working reductively with the eraser, he has created the impression of the wood grain and pressure treated hatches. In addition, the space has been rendered with horizontal bands gradually lightening as they recede away from the viewer.

Karlo Pillula

Karlo has created a very dramatic image with bold, strong, contrasting values. The dark cloud in the background is animated and menacing reminiscent of a rapidly approaching dust storm  on a small desert town.

Ray Colby

Ray's drawing on warm brown paper has a very calming effect. This is in stark contrast to Karlo's drawing above. The lighting and values are soft and establish a pleasing design on the forms as well as in the cast shadows.

PROPORTION: Sighting

Ashley Garr

Last night began with a discussion on identifying the Ideal Solids within everyday objects. Notice in the drawing above that the bottle is composed of a cylinder, cone and cylinder. We also discussed "sighting" for correcting proportions.

Megan Svendsen

In the next series of drawings we addressed and emphasized the negative space around and between two bottles. Like the objects within a composition, the space may also be measured and corrected for accuracy. Remember from our class discussion, it often helps to draw enclosed negative shapes around an object instead of trying to draw the object directly.

Gavino Baccei

The final series of drawings were of vases, pitchers and teapots. Again the objective was to 1. identify the Ideal Solids and 2. correct the proportions using "sighting." Notice in Gavino's drawing how he first drew a cylinder before trying to render the bell shape of the teapot.