Deconstruction Project: Drawing #3

Hello Drawing 1 Students,
In preparation for drawing number three, lets consider where we've come from.

Our first drawing in this series was a contour line drawing. This drawing was intended to loosely familiarize ourselves with the imagery and consider foreground and background with a sense of democracy. The use of continuous line was difficult because there was very little frame of reference in beginning it. In other words, many students found their proportions to be inaccurate pretty early on in the drawing but this failure in accuracy was important to acknowledge.

Our second drawing is our Geometric Drawing or our Planar Drawing. Once again, this image forces you to equalize the negative and positive space through the use of a limited range of flat shapes. The flatness of the image leads one to grapple with the nature of form and consider three-dimensionality in a new light, with the intent to simplify. Each drawing took the complex image and broke it down to its most basic compositional elements and force you to generalize both the figure and the values.

Once both studies are accomplished, you will be ready to begin your third drawing, an accurate rendering of the masterpiece. This image is intended to be accurate in every way possible from depiction of figure and value to the textures within the picture. To begin this drawing one must consider the additive nature of drawing, the building up of the image. When beginning the drawing you should start with a loose gesture, a light and fairly quick rendering of the image that places the figures in the space with attention to proportion and angle. This part of the process is crucial for future steps.

The next step in the process will be to establish greater detail within the drawing, distinguishing figures and correcting things while you work. This step will also include basic flat value tones. Filling the space with the most general and simple values will make filling more detailed values easier.

Lastly, address detailed values, complex gradients and textures. This part of the drawing is easy to cut corners on because it is the last step, but it is the most crucial part to making the image believable.

Please e-mail me if you have any questions about this outline for moving forward. Remember we only have time to work on the third drawing during one class period which means you will need to work outside of class.

Thanks,
B.