The class did excellent work using viewfinders to do quick value studies of various still life set ups, then choosing the best of these to scale up to large drawings.  Most used graphite or charcoal.  Next week we move on to ink and ink wash.  Please remember to bring TOMBO pens and watercolor paper.  Thanks for your hard work.

When you choose to do a drawing or painting in the future, remember to consider all those factors which help create a pleasing composition, do a few value studies to look at shapes and values (pieces of dark and light) and scale up the best arrangment. That way you won’t spend a lot of time working on a drawing that isn’t put together well.

Also.. try and remember to draw all over the sheet as you develop your drawing, keeping in mind the evolution of the whole, rather than working on one part and then going to another (drawing sequentially.)  You will have an easier time creating a unified and balanced creation.  Go from loose and gestural to tighter and controlled as you draw.  Keep the final drawing in mind as you work.

We spent the afternoon and early evening talking about creating form with value. Each student then covered a large sheet of newsprint with an even tone of soft charcoal.  Setting up glass, as well as white porcelain and plastic still life, and using “spotlights” in the darkened room, we drew these forms on the paper by removing the charcoal with a malleable eraser to create light, and putting in more charcoal to create darker values.  The results you can see below.  Bravo!!  All of the students this semester (there are only six) have come to class with good basic drawing skills, and this has helped in moving us along.  To stretch “drawing muscles” we then switched gears and did detailed, exploratory drawings of insects, creating explanatory texts along side the drawings, in the manner of a DaVinci journal.  Next week we will consider Chapter 7 in Dodson’s book, and do exercises in composition and design.

We had a great afternoon gesture drawing the metal sculpture out on the green alongside Cook building on Tuesday afternoon.  This small class of 7 students (we were missing one only) did excellent work.  They all picked up the idea of gesture very quickly and spent about an hour generating good work.  We wandered around and used not only the sculpture as subjects, but each other, other students around us, as well as some of the campus buildings.  We will revisit the latter when we work on linear perspective in a later class. It became quite breezy and cool by 5:30 p.m. and we went inside and students did charcoal and graphite value studies of each other in triads (3/4 views and frontal views).  This was followed by exercises illustrating the differences between 3D to 2D drawings vs. 2D to 2D drawings, with an emphasis on the value of drawing from life.

One problem students struggled with, particularly in the portrait drawing sessions, was the issue of creating images from memory, rather than seeing the subject.  Attempts at the sequence: look, mark, look, mark, look, mark (which allow constant comparison of the evolving drawing with the subject) often defaulted to: look, look, look, look, mark, mark, mark, mark.  In the latter mode, the subject can sometimes become distorted or iconographic, as actual shapes in the subject are transformed into shape icons (the eye as an almond shape with the circle inside it for example).  Students are becoming aware of this problem and are attending to it.

Thanks to everyone for your hard work.

Yesterday afternoon and evening we drew outside on the green (metal sculpure) and inside (apple still life) exploring different distances from artist to subject and how to:  look, mark, look, mark, look, mark, look, mark….. rather than just look, look, look, look, look, look, mark, mark, mark, mark, mark, in efforts to draw what we see, not what we know.  Everyone made attempts to draw relationally rather than sequentially, to get correct proportions, and placements on the page.  The whole four hours were focused on representational drawing.

We then discussed the class paper and went over in detail homework assignments from next week.  We ended with a short written quiz on a reading which dealt specifically with the concept of drawing as a way of learning.  Below are a few pictures of Ashely, Beth, Drew, Jonah, Faith, Katy, on the lawn behind Cook.

Willem Leenstra on board his Yacht, the “Fried Dough.”

Some images from last night’s class.  We all worked hard for about 4 hours, drawing, writing and talking about image making.   For those in the class not yet on the listserv, please attend to this as soon as possible.