Skulls on toned paper

Today in drawing class we worked on one of my favourite techniques for creating representational form and dimensionality using tonal values.  The assignment was given after a demo on how to squint and see the darks apply them, then erase out the lights and to go back building up the forms with adding or taking away material but not relying on line to draw what they see. In no particular order are some of the images I snapped during class and to share with anyone interested or who missed class, you know who you are, hopefully this is helpful ;P

Like a proud father...

It is Father's day and I got up early to send my well wishes to my dad's.  Hopefully you have done this by now too. Now its time to turn the table a bit. I'm staying at home, making me a stay at home dad today. lol. Joking aside, I am like a proud father when my students and the people I work with achieve their goals. Sometimes I pull out my camera when I feel this way and write this blog to share it with you. So here is a bit of gushing over my "kids".

I am proud to announce my Blackfoot Graphic Novel is off to the printers so in a short time there will be 2000 copies of my participants and elders to be proud of all the hard work they accomplished. I also want to share some of my Drawing 1 students work from class this week that made me feel a bit like a father showing off 'cause he's so proud.

We did skull studies last week on toned paper. This is only the 4th class. It is the first time many of these students have not only drawing this way but also with charcoal as a material. Rather than go on and on about the process, the chamois etc. I think Ill just let you look at the drawings and their development for yourself. In no particular order. enjoy.

More colour is better

We continued our exploration of the basic colours and their inherit values.

Here are my demo notes representing the primary and secondary tint/shades chart instruction and their relative layout placement.

I love the colours around this sample swatch.

Gorgeous greens.

Beautiful colour strings in arcs on each disposable palette paper. 

And the rest......as they say.......

is HOMEWORK!!!

Back in the swing of things

Well I've been back at it, teaching and chores but before all of this I managed to squeak off a squeaky clean episode from my Japanese hotel bathtub. Watch below if this sort of thing seems interesting.

More to come from the far east in my you tube episodes.
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My summer courses at ACAD are underway and my students so far are doing great.  In my drawing 1 we have already begun our studies of line, followed by shape, tone and form. Here are some of the exercises form the previous weeks class.  We worked in graphite, with lit painted white shapes in order to help with understanding how to see and apply tone on paper to create a believable illusion.

The following weeks class we focused on how to construct objects in proper proportion with still life items brought in by each student in class.

We began with simple shapes as we did in the previous week, this time as f they were invisible crystal to help get their size, shape and form correctly placed in the visual space.

Even without the information of shading we can tell clearly where objects are because of their placement as well as proportion to other objects in the picture.

 They are progressing well through the steps and I'm sure if classes were more than 3 hrs long each they could bring these to proper completion. However, the lessons were learned and we can move onto the next step in progressing their drawing skills.