Intro Drawing University of Advancing Technology, Online

Justin Fowler Kitchen Still Life

Still life setup and examples

Notes, general info

http://www.youtube.com/DannyGregory#p/u/8/aZw8ELc8oS8

http://www.youtube.com/DannyGregory#p/u/49/4PcLxt0ORjY

http://www.youtube.com/DannyGregory#p/u/10/x3c-ONN9tIg

How many classmates do we need to respond to for the assignments?

Sighting technique, still life. video 20"Sighting - If you haven't seen this streaming video tutorial on sighting - watch it now!

Bookshelves : how to

Loose gesture, sketches stay loose! the great artists end up with very accurate works, but they work from very general light drawings to more and more specific line and shape

This course is about learning representational drawing - but keep in mind that there are other drawing styles and techniques, many applications, from doodling, architectural brainstorming, abtract drawing, etc etc...You are learning the grammar of drawing, the alphabet. What you do with it, what you end up building, whether you consider it to be preliminary to a work, or the end result - that is up to you.

W2

Still life

Justin Fowler

W3

Contour

Blind contour from Drawing on the Right Side of the brain

Blind contour is very very easy to do - there is just one rule (that you should follow anyway no matter what style of drawing you use) - Never look at the paper when drawing

PLUS go VERY slow

Blind contour should be investigative, exploratory, and not concerned with representationalism - however it will be the technique you want to use when representationally drawing leaves and rocks in nature

Contour 3 skulls
Contour shoes
Cross contour

The blind contour takes 20 minutes (slow and don’t look at the paper). Look at your hand, don't look at the paper, draw interior AND exterior lines, pores, freckles, spots, hairs, wrinkles, etc etc. It should look like you painted an ant and let it crawl around on the paper

The half blind or modified can be done in 1/2 hour (slow, and look down every 30 secs but stop drawing when you do so) and should have that same contour line quality and reveal lines that go around and in and over and through...but the objects will look like themselves.

And the still life doesn't require shading this week (save time, work on proportions) and should be more like the example on pg 44 how to draw what you see. This could take an hour. Keep it loose but accurate - if you want to show light guidelines and sketch marks you can...

Blind Contour: Hand drawings

Modified Contour: Hand/object drawings

Notes on mod-contour

A number of students struggle unnecessarily with mod-contour It is simple - look and draw, for as short as 3 seconds or as long as 30 seconds...then stop, and reposition the hand. think about it - if you are looking down at the paper and drawing, how can you be drawing the object you want to represent? So you HAVE to learn to draw without looking down - Below are a variety of examples, from loose to tight - but you can see the nature of the contour line is rather loose, varied, sensitive (thick and thin) and goes inside as well as outside

Childhood Drawing

Still Life

Interior, one point

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Value Scale

Here is a value scale

If you look at the elements you are being graded on this week - the full range of values is one of them (as covered in your book)

Try lighting your still life, or using a little artistic license for wiser use of black, white, grey...and all the others in between

It adds drama, volume, contrast to your work - AND adds points to your grade!

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Sighting Exercise

3

Week 3 Resources

General portrait Notes

Note: these aren't necesarily profiles, but they may help in understanding the face, the nature of the assignment

Undergrad drawing Jeff Prentice 1984
Portraits from the collection Chuck Close's curated MOMA show
artyfactory.comÂ Portrait tips

4

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Texture

Student work from another course

Below, previous curriculum

Note

posnegworks is a common exercise we do in drawing and design - drawing only the negative space around an object - in fact this exercise is in the Edward's book. Negative space is JUST as important as positive space.

Note 2:

Problems in an individual piece tend to fall within these five categories:

1. inconsistency of style, idea, or feeling
2. failure to determine basic structure
3. tendency to ignore negative space
4. inability to develop value range and transitions
5. failure to observe accurately

From Critical Assessment from Drawing, (4th Edition?) Betti/Sale

this is an EXCELLENT book BTW - if you ever see it for sale in a used bookstore or online, pick it up

Resources

Video Tutorials

formatting your work for online streaming flash video 7"
2 point perspective video 10 "
sighting technique, still life. video 20"
3 point perspective. 20" Error made early on - but fixed later - still worth viewing
shadows, cube and cylinder. 6"

Note:

Audio and video controllers are located below the screen. This is a progressive load, there may be delays depending on your connection. If the video hiccups, wait a little longer, take a short break, come back and it will be fully loaded.

Some Invented Perspective Projects

http://drawingforce.com for $10 you get access to excellent videos of a drawing in process
how to draw hair
Use the negative spaces to define positive forms. If the negative spaces are drawn correctly, the positive forms will have correct proportions.
before and after using photoshop to adjust

1. used levels to adjust contrast
2. used the dodge tool to lighten those dark edges
3. used smart sharpen to alleviate the blur
4. sized down to 600 to make the blur less noticable

Free software downloads
pixelpaint.com Great overview of one point perspective
dannygregory.com Here is a good time lapse video of danny gregory drawing a portrait, upside down. It isn't related to Perspective but it is worth viewing (:

How to scan an image larger than the scanner bed

Place a quadrant of the image in the scanner and scan...and continue doing this until you have scanned the entire image.
In photoshop - open all the scans.
Pick one of the images (or create a new, large canvas) and add a bunch of canvas for the other pieces to fit.
Drag the other pieces over and position them.
To position exactly - change the opacity of the image being moved to around 50%...it will show you the image underneath so you can line them up. When lined up change the opacity back to 100%.

Above - click to enlarge. 3 views of interiors, with overlays showing how parallel lines converge at vanishing points on a horizon line. To find the horizon line when drawing, just measure where the lines of a fence, building, table converge. Remember, in one and two point perspective there is always only one horizon line.

Above - click to enlarge. A view of an interiors, with overlays showing how parallel lines converge at vanishing points on a horizon line.

when you can draw well, what's next?

why we are learning this?

Student: One thing I still don't understand is why we are learning this if we plan to be digital graphic artists?

My Answer: All of the foundation courses can be viewed as grammar - we learned the ABCs and basic spelling in school in order to get to the point where we could express ourselves better in writing, and the same thing is true with drawing, perspective, 2d design - once we learn the rules of form, contrast, proportion (etc) and composition using a variety of media we can make more sophisticated work (improved grades and portfolio contents) in courses later on in the program that use software instead of graphite. J

Time Management

Time is almost always going to be a factor for students - so work strategically -

Don't waste valuable time deviating from the assignment instructions

Practice drawings - This seems at odds with saving time, but working out the kinks and seeing improvements will be worth the few extra sketching minutes.

Don't be forced to repost because the drawing is formatted incorrectly or doesn't follow assignment parameters - do it right the first time by re-reading directions and carefully going through the announcements

Participation

More than a few students wait until day 7 to participate - sometimes ALL the crits and writing is done on day 7 within a few minutes.

How can that contribute to communication, participation, a conversation and learning experience?

It will cost you points - I highly recommend commenting a day or two after the assignment is due, and frequently during the week so the class dynamic is maintained and people can appreciate your input!

This course teaches representational drawing. This image from the text is an example of the kind of forms developed in class where structure and perspective are stressed in still lifes, exercises.

to the left:

Student still life and value drawings
250K

Strategy and technique

Incorporating into a drawing what you have learned in a particular week would be strategic - As we get to the end, we want to see a comprehensive understanding of the material.

But aside from the course and grade, I can assure you as an artist working out of the academic environment that when when I draw anything (from still life and man made objects to trees, clouds, waves, and other natural elements) I use sighting, sketching, gesture and contour drawing techniques together to get correct proportions, line variety and sense of mass, and organic line.

Photoshop and Drawing

This isn't a Photoshop course, but you are expected to understand the basics like scanning, cropping, resizing, adjusting levels (contrast) and combining images. You also are required to have the software and hardware (as well as the texts). I have provided some video tutorials (listed for you in the announcements, on formatting, sighting etc) but if you feel like you need more info on Photoshop there is the learning center link when you log in.

There you will find threads where you post questions and contact tutors. The first week is a 'get to know you' week with some flexibility. But after week 1 incorrectly formatted work receives a 0. And presentation issues such as cropping scan lines, shadows and tints from poor photos - those cause loss of points as well. Being a good artist doesn't help you when people can't see your work correctly online. There are reasons for these standards for size and resolution.

also - please note again that .doc and pdf formats aren't accepted for this course. They take too long to download and slow things up. Post directly to the threads. Finally - grammar and spelling are part of the grading. Please run spell check and if you are a second language speaker or have writing issues, try writing and having someone (husband, parent, friend) check it for you

Frames and Borders

The way you reference the edge of the picture plane is called 'framal reference'. Is the comp a window on the world allowing elements to reference a space outside the frame? Or is it a contained world, like looking into a cigar box?
Too often in our creations it is the latter - and the designs and drawings end up not taking advantage of the possibilities of a larger, inferred space

Negative space

When drawing the negative space, it can be quite useful when confronted with a difficult subject and will contribute to a more accurate drawing - if you ever take a life drawing class try it - draw the shape between the arm ha ging down and the body - and the shape of the arm will emerge