Grabbing Images From The Web And Uploading Them To Your Blog

If you don't know how to download an image, here are some steps: (I'm assuming everyone is a Mac user) Place the pointer on the image you want to download and right-click (or press "control" on the keyboard and click if the right-click doesn't work). Scroll down to "Save Image to Downloads" and click. The image is now in your "downloads" folder.

Click HERE for directions on how to upload images to your blog. When you click on the "browse" button to locate your images, remember that they are in the "downloads" folder.

E-mail me or submit a comment to this post if you have any difficulties.

Homework Due February 1

Outside Assignment:

Stairwell

* Use the same technique as in class

* Look for a strong composition

* Pay attention to your light source

Materials:

* Compressed & vine charcoal, black conte, chamois, hard eraser, 22"x30" WHITE paper

Blog: Search the Internet for artists' images demonstrating a strong sense of positive/negative space relationships and high-contrast value, post good examples to you blog.

Some Of My Own Charcoal Work

Please don't think that I'm posting these as a means of bragging or trying to impress you. I hardly see these drawings as brilliant masterpieces by any means. It just happened to occur to me, as I was looking at charcoal covered hands, faces, arms, clothing, and even feet, that back in grad school, while I was still working on my series of drawings based on Myspace photos, I experimented for a short while with doing some of them in charcoal. As a result, I came out of my studio on a daily basis with every inch of exposed skin covered in a coating of black dust. Consider that each of these drawings was on a sheet of 38"x50" paper. I had a long pile of charcoal powder along the baseboard of the wall where these drawings were pinned. AND, yes, the black boogers wouldn't quit. I just thought I'd share a few of them to show that I can (and do) sympathize. Maybe you can get a chuckle out of these crappy drawings, as well.

Some Charcoal-Erasure Animation Goodness From William Kentridge

William Kentridge creates these animations by covering a piece of paper in charcoal, just as you're doing in class, and then erasing into it to create a drawing. For each new frame of animation, he erases part of his original image and then draws in the new change. Imagine the sheer amount of work that it took to do something like THIS...

More Info For The 4:20 Class: What To Bring On Thursday

On Tuesday, in the 4:20 class, we'll work on the assignment that we are supposed to do in class that day. So, have the materials in with you that are listed in your syllabus for the in-class assignment on 1-25. Any questions? Call me.

Sanford Biggers

This video has very little to do with drawing, but Biggers is an extremely interesting guy, nonetheless. This is a studio visit with him:

Reminder About Homework (For The 1:00 Class)

Here are some examples of the homework assignment due on Tuesday:

SNOW!!! (This Is For The 4:20 Class)

So...they have cancelled all classes at MCA after 4:00 PM today due to the snow! Seems a bit drastic, but I don't make those decisions. This means that the 4:20 class won't meet tonight. For those of you in that class, I'm sure this seems like a blessing. However, it puts us in a bit of a bind and could throw off the schedule if we don't handle it just right. So, I am going to have to compress the schedule just a bit next week (and I know this is short notice, but my hands are tied). Don't worry about the homework that would have been assigned today, but I would like you to attempt to do the in-class work on your own time. I'll explain it in detail here:

Today, in class, we WOULD have done drawings like these:

This is done using a particular technique:

1. Cover your entire paper with a layer of compressed charcoal.

2. Use your chamois to smooth the charcoal.

3. Cover the entire paper in charcoal again and chamois it again.

4. If you don't yet have a nice, dark value and a velvety texture, give it a third layer and chamois.

5. Working from observation, use the white conte to make a LIGHT line drawing of the contour of the objects in your composition. This is pure contour, no interior details. You are only concerning yourself with positive and negative shapes created by the objects you are observing.

6. Consider the placement of your composition on the picture plane (how does it interact with the edges of the picture plane? how is it balanced?) and look for a good variety of shapes (a lot of variation in the size and type of shapes gives visual interest).

7. Erase into this charcoal ground based on your initial guide drawing. You may choose whether to keep the charcoal ground as positive space and erase out the negative space, or vice versa.

8. Spray fix the drawing.

9. Make two drawings to bring with you to class on Tuesday.

Materials:

Compressed charcoal, white conte, hard eraser, 2 sheets of 18"x24" bond paper.

If you have questions about any of these instructions, contact me. I will help you in any way that I can. On Saturday or Sunday, call me as opposed to e-mailing me. I won't be in a position to check e-mail on either of those days until late in the evening.

See you Tuesday.

Good Examples Of Blogs From Past Drawing 2 Classes

http://angeliquedrawing1-2.blogspot.com/

http://imanarret-neolune.blogspot.com/

http://lexiedrawn.blogspot.com/

http://drawing2lmcdowell.blogspot.com/

A Reminder About What We'll Be Doing, And What To Bring, On Thursday

Composition: Positive-Negative or Figure-Ground relationships
o Importance of edge of picture plane
o Use of viewfinder
o Erasure from caharcoal ground
o Materials
• Vine and compressed charcoal, white conte, kneaded and hard erasers, spray fixative, chamois, 3 sheets of white bond paper (18”x24”)

This is a chamois...

You will DEFINITELY need a HARD eraser...

This is vine charcoal...

Make sure to have WHITE conte...

This is what compressed charcoal looks like...

...and this is the brand that our supply store carries.

Lava Soap And Magic Erasers

So...allow me share a little learned-from-experience wisdom here: Since, without a doubt, you will get disgustingly dirty in this class, I would suggest you purchase two fairly inexpensive products that will help you beyond belief in this class:

Lava Soap...

...which comes in a pump bottle like this...

...or in bars like this.

And Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.

Lava Soap has been around forever, and has pumice mixed in with the cleansing soap. The pumice is an exfoliant which removes the top layer of dead skin cells. That's where the charcoal is. It'll also get up under your fingernails nicely if you use it well.

Magic Erasers are a bit newer, having only been developed in the past decade, but DAMN do they work! They are the perfect thing to take dirty charcoal fingerprints off of walls, desks, chairs, 3D design work, etc. without damaging the surface of whatever you are cleaning.

Neither of these will make for a huge investment on your part. A few bucks spent now and you avoid a lot of problems down the road.

WELCOME!

Alright folks, this is where we begin. If you are reading this, then I trust you have followed the directions I gave you and have established your own class blog. Please DO NOT forget to e-mail me the url address of your blog. I will be placing links to everyone's blogs in the "Student Blogs" section to the right. This will allow everyone to more easily locate your information and provide a central hub from which all of the blogs can be accessed. It would be best if I had your url BEFORE THURSDAY so that I can actually see everyone's blogs before class.

Your class blog is an important part of the workload in this class. I personally feel that technology is such an integral and all-encompassing aspect of our lives, careers, and even social interactions, that to deny its influence--even when studying an institution as old and traditional as drawing--is ridiculous. Therefore, this blog counts as a percentage of your grade in this class. A small percentage, to be sure, but enough to push a plus or minus behind a letter grade. So, a good blog could be that one deciding factor that pushes your final course grade from, for example, a C+ to a B. So, please don't neglect it.

Don't forget to enter your first post. Make sure to blog a little bit about what you have come to MCA for. What is your major? What attracted you to MCA? What do you want to do in the future once you have received your degree? Etc.

Also, don't forget to attach a pocket in the back of your sketchbook like the one in the following example: