Starting now Week 7 of The Art & Science of Drawing. These two last weeks are all about shading.
- we can’t see (or draw) any object if it is sitting in complete blackness
- we are drawing the impact of the light on the objects, not the objects themselves
- diagonal light from a single source that is above, in front, and on a side (left or right) of the subject is usually best for describing shape
- this way 2/3 – 3/4 of the subject is in light and 1/4 – 1/3 is in shadow
- historically, this arrangement was obtained drawing light through a single window
The value scale
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value: the degree of relative lightness or darkness of a color
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draw a long rectangle and split it in 5 boxes
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start on one side with the darkest value (black) and mark it as value No. 5
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if using white paper, on the other side of the scale we have our value No. 1 - we will not darken this box at all
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start filling the middle box with value No. 3
- try to get a value in the middle between the No. 5 and No. 1
- you can leave it a bit lighter and darken it later, when adding No. 2 and No. 4
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draw No. 4
- again, leave some room for refinement
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draw No. 2
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start refining No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 until you get them evenly set between No. 1 and No. 5
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once finishing the scale, try to make some gradations under each box, starting with the current value and finishing with the next value (for example, under No.4, draw a gradation from No. 4 to No. 3)
- try to repeat these until you can make them on command, without the value scale
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repeat the process using a toned paper, a black pencil and a white paper.
The assignment
- create two value scales
- each value scale will have five steps
- one scale should be on white paper using a black pencil
- the other one will be done on gray paper using a black and a white pencils
- practice making each individual value
