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Description
This week we finally moved on to using values (dark and light shades) instead of just lines. Finally we get to break out those charcoals we've been hauling around for weeks.

Very first in-class assignment: draw a value scale. These can be done in any sort of media, such as pen dotting or crosshatching, pencil, digital, ink wash, whatever. The point is to go from as light as possible to as dark as possible in a more or less regular number of steps. This particular one is ten 2 x 2 inch squares on the 18 x 24 drawing paper, using my medium charcoal pencil.

The charcoal pencil tends to rest on top of the paper surface, showing a lot of white paper texture through the darkness. The left-hand, light side of this scale shows the texture clearly. When smudged with a finger, though, the charcoal gets driven down into the paper and gets MUCH darker very quickly. The right-hand half of this scale has all been finger-smudged to be darker than it was when initially drawn in; and my print is there to remind me of the fact.

Description
This week we finally moved on to using values (dark and light shades) instead of just lines. Finally we get to break out those charcoals we've been hauling around for weeks.

Very first in-class assignment: draw a value scale. These can be done in any sort of media, such as pen dotting or crosshatching, pencil, digital, ink wash, whatever. The point is to go from as light as possible to as dark as possible in a more or less regular number of steps. This particular one is ten 2 x 2 inch squares on the 18 x 24 drawing paper, using my medium charcoal pencil.

The charcoal pencil tends to rest on top of the paper surface, showing a lot of white paper texture through the darkness. The left-hand, light side of this scale shows the texture clearly. When smudged with a finger, though, the charcoal gets driven down into the paper and gets MUCH darker very quickly. The right-hand half of this scale has all been finger-smudged to be darker than it was when initially drawn in; and my print is there to remind me of the fact.