4/19/12- Basic Drawing

Today's Class- Today we went back to value drawing, but with a new medium- conte crayon. These crayons are harder than charcoal, and can make clean hard edges that don't easily smear, but can still be blended to create gradual value changes. They come in a variety of colors, but we tried black and a reddish color, as in the examples above.

How to make this up- You'll need to set up a still life with a variety of white and colored objects, and light it with direct light to create shadow patterns. First do a value drawing with the black crayon, which will look similar to a compressed charcoal drawing. Then you need to do a drawing with just the red crayon. The values won't be quite as dark, but still keep relative values in mind. Blending stumps (tortillions) work best for blending, though a bit of paper towel will do- fingers don't have the abrasive quality to do the job. Pencil erasers work better for erasing than kneaded erasers. The full instructions for the portfolio exercises can be found here.

Homework- Gather some silverware- a fork, knife and spoon. Arrange on a table in front of you so that none of them are parallel to each other. Light with direct lighting to create patterns of light (reflections) and shadow. Draw the still life on a page in your sketchbook using your black conte crayon, including any shadows cast on the table surface, paying attention to shape, proportions, perspective and value. Draw the same set up again using the red crayon. Rearrange the three utensils, but still with none parallel to each other, and draw two more times, once black and once red. Total of 4 drawings.

For next class 4/26/12- We will continue using conte crayons, but this time using the red and black together to try a variation of chiaroscuro drawing. Bring both crayons, erasers and blending tools, and your 18" x 24" pad.