Cay Denise

 

Just playing with a face sketch today that was initially painted in white, black and grays--that didn't look so hot. So I over-painted it with purple and used other tools to 'wild' it up. It's amazing to see that the face shading still comes through pretty accurately.

The lesson worked on today is to sketch a chosen subject and incorporate values of black to white using your tools...mine was a pencil.  For the white areas, I left the paper as is with no marks.  The intent was multi-fold: 1.  To determine light source and use light and shadow to show it. 2.  To use different kinds of mark-making to achieve gradations of shadow areas. 3.  To use contrast to clarify form where needed. With the finished sketch, the next step was to layer the values of black to white paint over the sketch.  I used acrylics.   What I learned is that mark-making can be used very effectively in a variety of ways, though it is messy--even the paper gets dirty as you can see.  The transformation to a painted piece was so well worth it.  This one is bold, intense and soft all at once, from my point of view.  What are your thoughts? I'm happy with the learning.  It continues to take time to 'see' various light and shado...

This started out as orange and maroon colors on a gesso'd page, and just look where it went from there.  What fun!   

A class is as much value and intense as the commitment and effort you make.   I'm 2-1/2 weeks into Ardith's class and have done some good work as well as have had some duds too--all part of the process.  I've never really worked with black and white only, so it is new territory.  But it is definitely foundational, and I'm learning new things all the time. Some of the completed work includes sketches like these where experimenting with our tools is vital: