Friday Fives
Jun. 23rd, 2006 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purpleponyartLast night was my last night of figure drawing at ACAD. I didn't want to buy another roll of newsprint, so I dug out the huge 14x17” sketchbook that my instructor for Drawing 120 required. There were plenty of blank pages left. Looking back on those old sketches and drawings from 2004, it made me a little nostalgic, so…
Five Favourite Art School Exercises
> Find 10 or more different ways to render a subject (Drawing 120)
Naturally I picked a photo of a big white horse as my subject (a figurine, still life or landscape will also do). Here are some of the things I rendered my white horse with: pencil, Prismacolor markers and vellum, newspaper collage and black oil pastel, white acrylic fingerpainting on black Mayfair paper, watercolour and black embroidery floss, chalk pastel and homemade stencil. Anything goes!
> Make a value scale in graphite (Drawing 110)
One thing that often stands out in artwork is the lack of value, or lights and darks. I think it is harder to make the darks "dark", but it is important. One a piece of heavier stock paper (such as Bristol or Mayfair paper) make a line of ten 1"x1" squares. They may be close together or have some space between them. The first square will be the colour of the paper, or completely white. The last one will be as dark as you can make it. Between these two squares will be a range of grays ranging from light to dark. If you are moving from black to white, each square should get progressively lighter by the time you reach the second last one. Use varying soft and hard pencils to make the job easier.
> Render a shiny object in conte crayon (Drawing 110)
My shiny object was an old-fashioned kettle, but alas I could not become one with the kettle at all. This exercise applies observational skills and value. Find any shiny object (a metal pot, a metal spoon...anything shiny that isn't a mirror) and illuminate it with a bright light source. A desk lamp or clamp lamp work great. Look for reflections, lights and darks as you render your shiny object. Try using large sizes of paper, such as 18"x24" too.
> Modernize a famous painting (Drawing 120)
This assignment really brought out the potential in the class. I remember everyone did such a good job, especially one girl who did a giant copy of a portrait of a young boy holding a grenade. For my own, I chose to modernize El Greco's painting of St. Luke. Just changing a small detail can either make a poignant statement or create humour using the historical context with something modern. For example, the Globe and Mail ran a manip of George W. Bush's head on a famous portrait of Napoleon.
> Blind contour drawing (Drawing 110)
My Drawing 110 instructor kicked our class off with this exercise and it was a great ice-breaker. We made several drawings of our shoes and the results were very amusing! Basically, one slowly follows the contours of a model with the eyes while moving the pencil at the same time. It is "drawing without looking". Many nice, abstracted shapes and drawings can be made this way, and anyone can do it!
Five Favourite Art School Exercises
> Find 10 or more different ways to render a subject (Drawing 120)
Naturally I picked a photo of a big white horse as my subject (a figurine, still life or landscape will also do). Here are some of the things I rendered my white horse with: pencil, Prismacolor markers and vellum, newspaper collage and black oil pastel, white acrylic fingerpainting on black Mayfair paper, watercolour and black embroidery floss, chalk pastel and homemade stencil. Anything goes!
> Make a value scale in graphite (Drawing 110)
One thing that often stands out in artwork is the lack of value, or lights and darks. I think it is harder to make the darks "dark", but it is important. One a piece of heavier stock paper (such as Bristol or Mayfair paper) make a line of ten 1"x1" squares. They may be close together or have some space between them. The first square will be the colour of the paper, or completely white. The last one will be as dark as you can make it. Between these two squares will be a range of grays ranging from light to dark. If you are moving from black to white, each square should get progressively lighter by the time you reach the second last one. Use varying soft and hard pencils to make the job easier.
> Render a shiny object in conte crayon (Drawing 110)
My shiny object was an old-fashioned kettle, but alas I could not become one with the kettle at all. This exercise applies observational skills and value. Find any shiny object (a metal pot, a metal spoon...anything shiny that isn't a mirror) and illuminate it with a bright light source. A desk lamp or clamp lamp work great. Look for reflections, lights and darks as you render your shiny object. Try using large sizes of paper, such as 18"x24" too.
> Modernize a famous painting (Drawing 120)
This assignment really brought out the potential in the class. I remember everyone did such a good job, especially one girl who did a giant copy of a portrait of a young boy holding a grenade. For my own, I chose to modernize El Greco's painting of St. Luke. Just changing a small detail can either make a poignant statement or create humour using the historical context with something modern. For example, the Globe and Mail ran a manip of George W. Bush's head on a famous portrait of Napoleon.
> Blind contour drawing (Drawing 110)
My Drawing 110 instructor kicked our class off with this exercise and it was a great ice-breaker. We made several drawings of our shoes and the results were very amusing! Basically, one slowly follows the contours of a model with the eyes while moving the pencil at the same time. It is "drawing without looking". Many nice, abstracted shapes and drawings can be made this way, and anyone can do it!
