FINAL WORDS

Dear Students,
For your Final Exam, please remember:
Each student will present his or her Final Drawing, along with relevant sketches. Be prepared to speak about your work for several minutes, sharing with the class some background about the thought process that went into the drawing, including the initial idea and how it changed during the drawing process. What did you have to give up, what did you discover? Ultimately, what are you satisfied with, and what still troubles you? What did you learn? What do you want to draw next?
These are some ideas about what to talk about. Please do not stand silently next to your drawing. This work took you many hours to make, and I'd like you to attempt to put into words some of that effort. We will SEE the effort before us, as well, but we'd like to hear the background and understand what you experienced.
Additionally, please pin up your model drawing done in the last two days of class, as well as your favorite piece from the semester.
I SO enjoyed this semester with you. Thank you, thank you.
Haley

FINAL PROJECT

Final Drawing Project : Narrative Drawing


due: at final exam time/date

size: minimum 18 x 24

media: your choice, among those we utilized in class

time requirement: eight hours, minimum, not including sketches.

Include at least two of the following: still life, interior, landscape, figure or portrait

Due on Thursday Nov 29: FIVE 18 x 24 sketches for final project. Explore ideas, work out compositions, play with the light and value structure, possibly explore color

Wayne Thiebaud, as requested by Lily

Wayne Thiebaud, oil on canvas.

Thank you to Lily for the suggestion.

VAN GOGH

Our trip to Van Gogh is scheduled for Tuesday December 4. Thank you very much to all of you who put up your ticket money already. Good news: those of you who have NOT yet paid, can still come, and pay at the door. Our entry to the show is at 2 pm. Let's meet at 1:45 in the lobby. At that time, we will pay and go in together.
This trip to see Van Gogh is not required, just highly recommended. I am looking forward to sharing this with you.

We can visit other parts of the museum as well.

Manet, Monet, Matisse, and 17th century dutch still life

Homework due Nov 27, Tuesday after Thanksgiving

FOOD STILL LIFE
A pastel drawing of a food item (s) in a setting. 18 x 24 pastel on canson mi-teintes paper. As we have practiced doing in class, choose your paper to suit your subject. The beauty of pastel can come from letting the toned paper show through your mark-making. Permit this tone to permeate and unify the entire composition. Select a palette for your subject, and make some color notes on a separate piece of (toned) paper to guide your choice. Take care when setting up your subject. Consider lighting and background, as well as placement of objects. A tablecloth, a bowl, a knife? A sliced lemon, a bunch of grapes, a bowl of cranberry jelly? Take it a step further and consider what you mean to say with your drawing: Is this a reflection on abundance, decay, gourmandise, plenty, or lack? (For example.) Let your mark-making elucidate the meaning. Let the drawing guide you. Give your drawing a title, after you have completed it.
6-9 hour drawing. Work on it over multiple sessions.

Bring a couple sheets of Canson mi-teintes toned charcoal paper to class on Tuesday Nov 6, as well as your conte crayons in black, white, sanguine, and dark brown. Wear a beautiful shirt.

Homework: Self Portrait

Due Thursday November 8.
Self Portrait. Vine Charcoal. Can use compressed charcoal and charcoal pencil as well, but begin composition with vine, for ease of manipulation.
18 x 24 paper. Use entire page. Compose a Head-and-Shoulders (known as a bust portrait) self-portrait, by looking in a mirror. Consider your set-up: Lighting and Background.
Tone entire page with mid-value vine charcoal to begin. Draw with eraser and vine in an additive-and-subtractive manner. Consider and compose entire drawing space: the Rectangle. Try a 3/4 view, or full frontal view. Draw the space behind and around the head. No photographs may be used - draw from life. IMPORTANT: This is a 6-9 hour drawing. 

Excellent work on your profile portraits, my students! I am so pleased with your work and progress.

Midterms! coming up...

We will draw again in University Greenhouse. Bring sketchbook, ink, brush, and pens.

I will ask you to sign up for a midterm review time slot. I will meet individually with each of you at the appointed time. Midterm reviews will take place October 23 and 25.

Please fill out and bring the following self-evaluation to your review:


MIDTERM SELF-EVALUATION

Give yourself a number grade following this rubric, and briefly explain:

10 A+

9   A

8   A-

7B+

6B

5B-

4C

and so on…

Name:

Quality of work:

Enthusiasm:

Time put in:

Interest:

Homework accomplished and finished:

Class work accomplished and finished:

Stand-out drawings:

Mid-term grade:

How you plan to improve:

October 1, 2012

Obtain 3-5 yards of Brown Butcher Paper and bring this to class on Tuesday, along with vine and compressed charcoal, charcoal pencil, gum eraser, and white chalk or conte.

Homework due Thursday Oct 4: 
Value drawing, 18 x 24. Vine charcoal and gum eraser. No lines. Tone entire drawing rectangle with mid value, pull out light value areas with eraser, add darker values with charcoal. Your set-up will be an arrangement of brightly colored objects. You will be discerning the value of high-chroma objects.

Drawing Negative Spaces

Homework Due Tuesday Sept 11:
Two Still-lives with a chair.
Line Drawing.
Set up one still-life on the seat of a the chair, and another still-life on the ground beside or in front of the chair. Your drawing should incorporate these two points of view: looking at subject closer to eye-level and looking down on subject. Pay close attention to the shift in view points, note whether your head moves as well as your eyes to take in the entire scene, analyze scale shifts between two groups of objects, and draw all objects and spaces in relation to others. Employ technique of linear measurement as we have been working in class - begin very lightly, draw lines as needed through objects to place them accurately in space, build up line, no erasing. Draw your drawing space (rectangle) on the page, as elicited by your framing window. Draw the space between the objects.
Evalutated on:
Accuracy - objects and spaces drawn in proportion.
Line weight to indicate spatial relationships.
Negative space incorporated into composition.

As always, more ambitious drawings will be rewarded.

Homework and important points

Drawing is a combination of Perception and Conception. We can also think of this as Vision and Abstraction. For example:
We will begin next week with Line. Line is abstract. (Abstract - Expressing a quality apart from an object.) When we draw a line, we are not recording a line that we see. Line is not a representation of a sense impression in the direct sense that color is.  Line drawing is an abstract activity. When we draw a line, it is our perceptual judgement moving to visual abstraction.

I would like you to think of the drawings that you will do in class as visual records of a search. It will be important for you to give up your preconceptions about what you a are seeing, and become open to seeing in a new way. I'd like for you to give yourselves over to the process of seeing and drawing. Concentration is very important.

Leonardo da Vinci Perpective drawing

Homework due Thursday August 23: Make Framing Tool.

Framing Tool