THURS. 9/22 Value Reduction

For this project, students observed the local values of objects within a still life and their shadows.  If a value ranges from 1 to 5 (high key) it remains white in the drawing.  If a value is low key it is filled in solid black.  These drawings become very abstract and suggest the forms rather directly illustrating the objects. The key to a successful design is to establish a rhythm or path between the black and white shapes and to use repetition if possible.

Lina Chambliss

Magalli Larque

Ross Teter

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. 

9/17 (Friday) Imaginary Face and Value Reduction

The morning session began with a slide presentation on the various methods and applications of Value; followed by a brief presentation on some late portraits made by Pablo Picasso.  The project, inspired by the portraits by Picasso, was to divide and cover the picture plane with large open shapes resembling a face seen from multiple viewpoints.  Values and textures were then applied to the shapes using charcoal materials and erasers. Drawings by Jennifer Garcia and Matthias Linford.

In the afternoon, we continued working on value studies.  This next project is called Value Reduction.  All values located in the still life ranging from 1-5 are rendered white, all values 6-10 are rendered black.  The resulting drawing is a flattened, abstract image with a merging of the positive and negative areas. Drawings by Stazi Borissenko, Nancy Rubio and Monica Gomez.

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.

6/24 VALUE

We began our studies of Value on Thursday.  After the slide lecture, students made Value Reduction drawings reducing all values to black and white.  In other words, all values ranging from one to five (high key) were rendered white.  All values ranging from six to ten (low key) were rendered black.  We also made drawings exploring value patterns.  Pics of the value patterns drawings to follow.  Drawings by Dustin Hom and David Chapdelaine.

2/10 Value Reduction

Wednesday evening began with a lecture on Value.  Value refers to the gradations between light and dark. Values are influenced by the lighting conditions and the planar structure of an object.  For instance, rectangular objects have hard-edged value transitions; whereas curvilinear objects have smooth, gradual value transitions. 

The evening's drawing was a Value Reduction; a high contrast drawing consisting of two values,  black and white. When addressing values we refer to a scale of 10; 1 being 100% white, 10 being 100% black with 8 shades of gray.  For our drawing, we had to decide whether a value was between 1-5 or 6-10. Values ranging from 1-5 stayed white. Values from 6-10 went black.  The end result is a high contrast drawing that appears flat and somewhat abstract because edges merge and are lost within objects that share the same value. In DrewAlexander's drawing, notice how the two large objects on the left are not separated by a line.  The bucket in front shows a dark value with a light value on top that meets with two stripes on the pale behind. The edge is "implied".

Justin Edwards' drawing has similar areas. Although the drawing is very well composed and the values have been accurately reduced, the white areas in the bottom right corner shouldn't have a line around it. The same is true for the skull and the pale behind it. One solution, would be to have a broken or open line instead of a completely enclosed shape. All in all, still a very good drawing.

Value Reduction

Tuesday night we continued our value studies.  For these drawings we reduced all values to black and white.  All high key values became white.  All low key values became black.  The effect is a high contrast image emphasizing the structural break between the dark side and the light side.  It is important when making design decisions to consider all value patterns. This includes local values of the objects, the negative space and the cast shadows.  Drawing by Arianna Preston.