The Importance of Value in Drawings

Tonight in my Pencil Drawing Workshop, we will explore light & shadow in our drawings.  As a person who is drawn to color, I'm always amazed at how important light and shadow is to creating the illusion of 3 dimensions on a flat piece of paper.  

You can see how powerful value is when we turn a color image to black & white. Taking away the distraction of color helps to make the light & shadows apparent.

It took me years to really see shadows, to notice how they often have lighter and darker portions, and to see how light -- in this case, sunlight shining through a window on the left -- bounces off of the white part of the bowl and reflects onto the right side of the two pears on the right.

Here's an illustration of how light falls on a ball.

Seeing shadows on the ball helps us to see light & shadow on more complex shapes.

Remember, you don't have to get all of the values exactly right.  

Try giving your drawing 4 to 5 values, from brightest highlights to darkest darks.

Remember; you're not a camera, and you don't need to be perfect!  I encourage you to play around with seeing and drawing shadows.  

Making a few drawings focusing especially on values will help you to develop the ability to create depth in your artwork.  

I find that art created simply for an "assignment" like this feels less precious so it's easier to focus on the process of drawing.  You notice more, discover more, and learn more as you draw.

Happy Creating!

Drawing in the Museum

I'm teaching a course for Osher at CMU called Drawing in the Museum.  We meet in the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History each week and tour one of the exhibit halls, making sketches of the artworks and items on display.

We began in the Museum of Natural History's Halls of North American Wildlife, African Wildlife and Botany.

The following week, we moved on to the Hall of Architecture, where we found statuary, columns and facades to illustrate in our sketchbooks.

The museums allow visitors to draw, but only with graphite pencils and sketchbooks small enough to fit on your lap.

Those requirements make copying oil paintings particularly challenging.  

We invite our intuition to lead us in figuring out how to create the textures and values we see in the paintings with our pencils.

My sketch of the painting "Head of a Woman" by Eugene Carriere.

You can see the original here:

https://collection.carnegieart.org/objects/247c15b1-2c83-4972-a02e-8310762d5464

Drawing in the museum is an age-old technique for learning from the masters.  When you draw something, you see it more deeply than when you simply glance by it.

When was the last time you went to a museum?  Why not take a pencil and a sketch book along with you and sketch your favorite artwork?

Sketchbook Wanderings

 

I've been enjoying Koosje Koene's YouTube channel & book, and find that she's right in saying that even the most mundane thing becomes interesting when you draw it.  

Here are a few simple subjects I picked to draw, just for practice and the joy of drawing!

I hope you find a cozy moment to sketch your pet, your snacks, or anything in your life!

Osher Figure Drawing with Model Jamie

We had a new model last Friday in Osher Figure Drawing class named Jamie.  She's quite skilled and creative, and she helped us to sharpen our ability to draw foreshortening.

We started with two-minute continuous line drawings of Jamie's expressive gestures.  Her poses were alive and sensitive, and we could see her background as a dancer shining through in her movements.

We moved on to two-minute foreshortening gestures.  Our goals were to

1) Find a foreshortened limb to focus on.

2) Draw the bone structure underneath the foreshortened limb and supporting area, 

noticing the shortened appearance of the foreshortened bit.

3) Draw the outer body around the bones.

We built Jamie's foreshortened body from her skeleton up.

We were warmed up and ready to deal with more complexity.  Jamie took an hour-long pose, with breaks of course, and we delved into expressing her pose, foreshortening and all.

Many thanks to model Jamie. I could see the way her creativity inspired my students to draw lively, fresh compositions.

Vintage Art Supplies

What is it about vintage art supplies that thrills me?  I get swept away into idealism and nostalgia for the materials I remember from my childhood, when I spent endless happy hours drawing, painting, and creating in a messy state of wonder. 

The price is usually cheaper than modern materials, and the quality is often much better.  And, I like to think that forgotten art materials feel pride and delight in being used for their intended purpose rather than being left to gather dust, or worse,  dumped in the landfill.  

They want to be found by someone who will love them and make art with them!

 

A week ago, I found a box of 72 Koh-I-Noor graphite leads at the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse.  A half gross of professional grade 4B leads, just waiting to create amazing drawings! All for $12. A bargain!

At 3mm thick, the graphite leads wouldn't fit into any mechanical pencil I had.  An internet search led me to a vintage mechanical pencil on ebay, for $12. 

It arrived on Black Friday, and I excitedly ripped into the package, and loaded it up with a lead.  There's a magic to new art supplies.  With the winds of excitement blowing you along, you freely explore all the different types of marks your new tool can make. There is no right or wrong, just discovery and play.

And this is the best approach for art making with any supply -- no expectations, only explorations and experiments.

I began making sketches, and discovered that the thick lead created wonderful masses of tone when I turned it on its side (above).

I could sharpen the tip with a sandpaper sharpener or even a regular pencil sharpener, and get fine lines. 

The 4B graphite created dark tones, but also seemed quite strong and stiff, able to take a fair bit of pressure from the side.

I set out with my pencil and sketchbook, and found barnwood, winter weeds, and songbirds outdoors to sketch.

And at the end of the explorations, I had a journal filling with sketches, and a pencil that seemed happy to be back to work.  

I hope you get a chance to test out some art supplies -- vintage or modern -- soon!