The value of value.

Our exercise today involved white forms on green drapery (or at least I was told it was green), and to work with the values as they described the forms and the spaces. There was a lot to deal with and, in turn, there was a lot of frustration expressed. So we're going to simplify on Thursday and try to get more involved with drawing from observation and developing a mark-making approach to building up values.

Drawings with value compositions allow us to take all kinds of visual journeys. Each of our processes set up different rhythms in our work as we discussed at the end of class and the most expeditious means to an end doesn't necessarily teach us very much.  But those rhythms are important. Some of us draw with a fast tempo and others may be slower; some of us are precise and others may wander.  However, as our eyes move around our subject, like the one depicted above, we tend to look for groupings and patterns to organize so that our values and shapes make sense in the final image.  Value needs to describe those volumes and spaces in our work, and it needs to move our eyes around the image, it needs to engage us on all kinds of levels.

We all understand now, I think, that an important use of value in drawing is the development of compositions based on light and dark. Chiaroscuro (chiaro=light, scuro=dark) creates the illusion of solid form in a believable space.  One of the best ways to learn that is to draw drapery strongly lit from one side.  We'll explore that on Thursday.