Neutral Ground Drawing-Blue dancers

Media: Ebony pencil, knead-able eraser, neutral ground paper, figures 

Description: 

We continued on neutral ground drawing with blue figures of two dancers. The man had a woman on his head. She had arched and could not see her face, facing upward. First, I started with an eraser to create light values, and then I started using an ebony pencil to create darker values such as woman’s thigh, back, etc. I created light value with white chalk. I highlighted the man’s forehead, ear, and woman’s breast and knee area. I highlighted the areas where would have been closest if I was sitting in front of two figures dancing. I darkened (darkest area) where two figures meet. I thought about surface contour on subjects because actual contour line does not exist on real living things. It is well shown when you look at the picture closely—where woman’s head is, there is no lines between hairs and background. I just darkened the whole area to imply that darkness darkened the area so that we cannot really distinguish hair from the background. I think I increased my range of value from light to dark more than four because I used white chalk (1) and 8B (4) pencil. Other than that, I have erased part (2) and neutral ground (3). Therefore, there is no way that I would have less than four light and dark values when I used white chalk and the softest pencil, 8B. 

neutral ground still life

Media: Neutral Ground, still life, various kinds of B's pencil. 

Description: 

Neutral Ground Drawing was very new approach and new methods, different from what I usually have done. When I actually learned that Michelangelo’s artworks were using neutral ground, I was surprised. His works were amazing and I always have been impressed by his works because his details. His drawings look real.

When I was doing neutral ground drawing in the class, I get grounded pencil and simply smudge them on the whole sheet of paper. Then, by using a knead-able eraser I had to find the light values of figures first and adding darker values with an ebony pencil. When I began the drawing, I thought about the sizes of still life first and then started thinking about reflected lights at the back of the figures. However, I used a chalk to find the brightest parts of the drawing. I used the darkest value on the pot because it was the closest figure from my position. I also highlighted on a steel chair and a pot. I didn’t use very dark values on paper towel, because its texture is too soft to reflect lights as strong as other figures such as a steel chair. Soft figures usually absorb lights so they don’t really reflect lights—this fact makes me not to make figures to have many dark and light values at one.

I liked neutral ground drawing because it takes much less times than crosshatching which requires me to fill the whole sheet of paper. Instead, I can simply use my palm of hand and smudge. I could make light values easily by erasing, dark values by crosshatching or smudging pencils. I didn’t like it because it was somewhat like pastel drawing which makes the drawing foggy. I thought about contour lines even if the figures didn’t have contour lines. I used an eraser to find contour lines—division between background and the object. White chalk was like sprinkles over the cake. It gives higher quality of the drawing.

Crosshatching Seated Boy

Media: B's, H's pencils, eraser, and seated boy drawing

Description: 

I drew a contour line first and started shading with 2B. I started crosshatching. I crossed lines over to create dark values. 2Bs were not very effective for dark values such as armpit, so I used 4Bs. Extreme dark values were created by 8B. It was very soft. Under the butt was really dark so that I could not even tell what was under there, whether it is blanket or something else. I figured that extremely dark values have light value right next to it, and they contrast. Even if there is shadow, there is reflecting light. There was brightest light around his face. The boy seems like facing the light which makes shadow driven over him. Contour line didn’t exist there but it was distinguishable because dark and light value changes. The purpose of this assignment was to understand, create the dark and light values by using crosshatching

Contour/Texture-American Football

Media: Ebony or B's pencils, different kinds of textures, and eraser 
Description: 

We were told to set a composition of the picture from the magazines. We had to include two people and should not choose a drawing or a cartoon. The original was two boys playing American Football and one boy was attacking another. Two of boys seem to be Junior High School students. Their bodies weren’t muscular but feminine.

Drawing wasn’t that hard but choosing textures for boys were hard. First of all, I started with number on the players’ uniforms. I chose a matt because it has regular bumps which give a square pattern. I also tried to make it a three-dimensional look by pressing some parts harder. I chose a straw hat for a boy’s helmet. The straw hat has rounded pattern which also could help illustrating roundness of the helmet. I overlapped some parts to give a three-dimensional look. I chose a leather chair for skins, speaker for the player’s shirt, tiles for some part of the shirt, air-conditioner’s stripes for the sock, and vertical lines for the background which could possibly help two figures separate from the background.

When I was selecting textures for my assignment, I thoroughly thought about each figure’s real texture—Rough surface for rough texture, soft surface for soft texture, and so on.

Abraham Lincoln, Black paper and a chalk

Media: Black Paper, Chalk 

Title: Abraham Lincoln 

Description: 

 First of all, I did no longer use eight grids and just started from what I could see obviously. I started from the nose (center) so that I do not mess up other parts. Sometimes, the whole object is moved towards one side because parts of the figure are not in the right place.

             Compare to surface contour on the “seated boy,” Lincoln sculpture was similar because I can see no contour line around the figure because it is not a drawing. It is a real three-dimensional object which does not have contour lines because contour lines can be changed as I change my location.

             It could help me increase range of value from light to dark because the paper itself is black and I can create the brightest just by using a white chalk. However, I do not really know that my range has been increased by this exercise but I can tell that this exercise was really fun and I enjoyed it. It was something I never tried before. 

Negative/Positive Bird

I wanted to fill this negative area with something aquatic. 

I started from the bottom of the drawing. 

I filled  with coil-fish with waves, and then scale-like pattern on the right side of the drawing. 

After that, I was about to draw under water view on the left side, but I changed my mind to draw a well. A well has many bricks and they have many cracks which I can also include more details. The well is divided by sticks. Actually, it is a kite. The kite has four long lines crossing the circle and one corner is flipped by wind a little bit (my setting). 

I also wanted to add some water drop around the well. 

I was satisfied with this drawing. (I was just too tired to draw more details so I decided to be satisfied with it........) Good! Well done Laura. Compliments for myself. 

Finished by September 22, 2012. by Eunjung Kim

Crosshatching Still life drawing

Media: Pencil 2D Crosshatching Drawing 

We did positive/negative still life in the class. We were to use crosshatching to draw the still life. The purpose of this assignment was to understand the values of light and dark. Cross lines were projected over the still life which could also help illustrate the objects' three dimensional shape. The lines go straight on the background and they deform as they pass the still life.

Crosshatching lines were expected to be flat on the background since it is flat screen (Shadow of the still life looks a little three dimensional because of reflecting light when I was taking the picture). I emphasized the body sculpture, because, as you can see in the original picture taken, there is not much detail on the darkened side of the sculpture.

This crosshatching technique was expected throughout our assignments given previously, such as negative/positive still life and bird. The blank space of the paper was expected to be filled with any kinds of drawing, pattern, or etc. We did not have to do great or excellent on that drawing assignment but just to familiarize with the pencil’s characteristics, and dark and light values.

In my opinion, the concept of this exercise is for better understanding of three dimensional shapes and use of crosshatching. Additionally, contour drawing was one of the concepts. We did not copy contour lines that were there beforehand, but we made contour lines by ourselves by looking at the real figure.