Exhibit Opportunity

If anyone has some art they'd like to enter in a show in Jeffersonville, go to:

www.springintoart.org

I'll be serving as the awards judge. I'm not sure how or who will be jurying, but it would be good to see some stuff from IUS.

Lots-O-Snow

I hope everyone is enjoying the day off, playing in the snow. I think I'm over the shoveling though. I'm also a little bummed that we won't get to have a drawing session tonight, but that's nature. This is the kind of snowfall that inspires charcoal drawings, and so maybe you'll get out your drawing materials, pull a chair up to a window, look outside and start sketching. I played a little with photoshop to create a little "charcoal" sketch of some snow covered pines (click on images to enlarge). Enjoy.

See you on Thursday, I hope. Don't forget to bring in your reworked perspective drawings and the evaluation sheets as well. We'll get into some textural stuff then.

City Scapes

Below are some examples of two-point perspective drawings from F100 Basic Drawing. In some cases, very light pencil work was lost in the digitizing process, and some of the camera/lens distortions rendered some verticals less that vertical. However, what is evident in these drawings is an illusion of space created through rules and principles of Linear Perspective, and a grasp of how to utilize those tools. You can click on the drawings for a larger version.

Jerry's view of a corner pub is loaded with detail and the perspective is effective in communicating the receding spaces down both intersecting streets.

Jennifer's drawing combines three corners and an abundance of perspective details, cornices, windows, doors, balconies, even a curved glass atrium. The space works very well.

As I sit here at my MAC writing and loading this post, I am struck by the way that Jason managed to put the apple logo into perspective. It would be fun to see some computers in the windows.

Dustin has also taken a corner view that sweeps down two streets, yet he manages to keep us on the sidewalks. The perspective is effective in suggesting those spaces.

Adam has created a maze of buildings with alleys cutting in and out between them, the brick work on the left adds some interesting spaces to the drawing.

The first round of out-of-class projects have been submitted, and we'll talk about them a little this evening so that my written comments, which often aren't legible (so I've been told), will be clear. I want to insure that anyone who wants to resubmit next week will know the direction they need to take.

There were fourteen days from the time the project was first discussed until Tuesday when they were submitted. I also devoted one of our in-class sessions for the planning phase of this out-of-class project. So, if you factor in the amount of out-of-class study required per week for a three credit hour class, my expectations of effort were satisfied if I was looking at a drawing that appeared to exhibit at least nine hours of linear perspective study (drawing). Several satisfied that expectation. According to Greg Roberts, Arts and Letters Academic advisor, for every hour you spend in a class per week, you should devote three hours outside of that class for study. Studio classes are not like regular standard classes, we meet six hours per week instead of three, so I don't expect eighteen hours of study (drawing) per week beyond the six in-class hours, but expecting six hours in a two week period is not unreasonable.

Anyway, we'll hit a few areas of discussion this evening to become more clear about such projects and the efforts needed to be the best we can be in that regard. See you later.

The value of value.

The term chiaroscuro has its roots in Italian, where it literally means the combination of light (chiaro) and dark (scuro). In our drawing class it refers to the technique of applying subtly blended shades of gray to imitate the varying intensities of light and shadow that occur when light is directed toward and reflected off three-dimensional forms, such as the white plaster forms we've been working with during drawing sessions. Chiaroscuro is a powerful too for defining the mass and volume of individual forms, for describing surface texture, and for establishing and clarifying the space that exists between objects. The value scales you created over this past weekend should help you in seeing and representing some of the subtle values that most people overlook is objects under a direct light.

When you think about creating a drawing that has a wide range of value, you have to consider that he white of our drawing paper is the brightest white that we have at our disposal for describing the highest level of illumination in a drawing. It's important to identify those areas of our drawing that will remain white. Once these are identified, we can proceed to push everything else back to an appropriate level of "nonwhiteness". If you squint your eyes at the subject, the lightest lights and the darkest darks should become evident.

Rarely do shadows appear as solid black, they usually reflect some light, and they usually have a subtle gradation that changes throughout the shadow area, be on the lookout for that.It is usually slightly darker near the edges of the shadow where it comes into direct contact with the lighter areas (remember simultaneous contrast) and lighter toward the center of the shadow.

We really can't duplicate the intensity of a brightly lit still life by relying on the white of our paper, but we can come close to the dramatic effect of that by exaggerating the darks. Pushing the values down a step or two on the value scale will allow the highlights in your drawing to appear to glow with the same intensity and clarity as your perceptual experience.

We'll get a bit more complicated and challenging this evening and see how our drawing experiences are helping us to see better. Please refer to the post of September 22, 2009 for additional stuff about value.

See you tonight.

Teri Frame Lecture

Tonight is Teri Frame's lecture in the Clay studio, KV035, at 6:00, so that's where we'll meet first. I wasn't able to get back to campus in time to see her performance last evening, but all reports are that it was totally fascinating. It was tapped, so we may get a chance to see it if it gets posted somewhere. See you this evening in the clay studio, afterwards we'll continue exploring composition and value. See you soon.

Project #1 Perspective

Last night we discussed the first out-of-class project and did some preliminary studies. Please review the earlier post that I mentioned so that you can visit the perspective sites. The project will be a two-point perspective cityscape. I recommended that you look through magazines and web searches for cityscapes that might provide inspiration. Of course you'll be creating this city scape based on your knowledge and experience with linear perspective rather than drawing one from observation. Your city can be anything that you imagine it to be as long as your perspective is accurate. We will begin the process during class on Thursday after the 6:00 gallery talk by Valerie Fuchs, who will be opening an exhibition in our gallery. Do a Google search for "cityscapes drawings" to see some various examples of how artists have handled this subject. We'll go into all the intricacies of this project and what to avoid on Thursday.

Don't forget that the gallery talk begins at 6:00 in the gallery, just down the hall from our studio off of the Ogle lobby. Try to get there a few minutes before 6:00 so you'll be there when she starts.

See you tomorrow evening.

Perspective, as in LINEAR...

Hey drawers, if you look back through the blog to August 28, 2009, under the post titled "PERSPECTIVE", there are a few links that will take you to some places for a pretty good introduction to, explanation of, and visual examples of Linear Perspective. I think the information is pretty good and should help you to get a pretty quick grasp of some of the principles we'll be exploring this evening in class. It'll also allow you to travel around the blog to previous semesters and see some examples of previous work that has come out of this class, including some perspective drawings. See you this evening.