SUBJECTIVE VALUE

Serena Dunn (Monday/ Wednesday)

Students began work on the Subjective Value drawings. This project is loosely based on the concepts of Cubism and Surrealism. The objective is to create a fractured composition of many, interlocking shapes - like a puzzle. That's the Cubist part. To basically breakdown and reassemble your subject randomly, again, like scattered puzzle pieces. But first, the process starts with the Surrealist approach to drawing called Automatism. Making large arm movements (drawing from you shoulder), draw across the paper, zig-zagging and looping back, cropping and enclosing shapes. If you follow the edges of the shapes in the two drawings here, you should get the idea. From there the image may take the form of a Cubist-like portrait or remain a non-objective design. It's important to find the image within the lines rather than "project" your idea onto the paper. The shapes are then filled with values applied additively as well as reductively using a variety of charcoal materials.
Serena's drawing above is texturally rich exhibiting a variety of mark-making techniques. The composition swoops and swirls around like rising and falling waves. As the curling forms part, passages of patterns and smaller forms are revealed.

Christina Rehberg (Friday)

Christina's drawing exhibits a tornado-like swirling rhythm. The high contrast between the black and white areas makes the drawing "pop." The shapes are very well balanced between size and value creating a unified and clear composition.

Colored Pencil Drawings

Thursday evening we started working with colored pencils.  In the first example shown, the drawing was initiated in red.  Next, I went over all the red with blue.  And lastly I went over the red and blue areas excluding the contours with yellow.  Notice that the yellow doesn't cover the entire skull.  Some areas utilize the tone of the paper for highlights.  In the scribble gesture drawing, again I started with red, switching to blue and then yellow.  At that point, I began to alternate more rapidly between the colors.  Being a gestural approach to drawing, I tried to maintain the energy and spontaneity not only with the mark-making but with the color handling as well.  As I approached completion of the drawing, I added the black with yellow on top.  Finishing a drawing with a warm color like yellow is a great way to add a sense of luminosity and depth, not unlike "glazing" in painting.  In Arianna Preston's drawing (cow skull), she has separated the warm and cool colors which gives the drawing a sense  of time and place.  As in the last glowing rays of the sun as it sets.