Wednesday, April 6, 2011

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT #9: Hand + Cast Shadow on B&W Image

For this week's homework assignment, you are to find, or make, a simple black and white pattern-- checkerboards, design projects (if you took a basic design class), and printed fabrics are good to use. Place this pattern on a table, adjust a single light source so that it falls softly on the pattern, and then take your non-drawing hand and place it over the pattern.

Your goal is to create a value study using charcoal, of your hand and the shadow it casts over the black and white pattern. In the examples below you will note that, as discussed in class, the shadows are not solid or opaque, but transparent, so that you can make out the difference between the black of the pattern and the shadow that falls over the pattern. This is the crucial objective of this project-- to demonstrate the subtlety of value.

As always, consider your composition-- the placement of your hand in relation to the pattern, the shape of the shadow that is cast (you could even be clever and project a shadow puppet image).

Very lightly and loosely make your preliminary sketch, and then carefully and slowly build your value from light to dark. For those of you unfamiliar with anatomical proportioning in the hand, I will hand out some xeroxed pages from a book that concerns that very issue. I will be important to treat your hand with correct proportioning just as much as you would the objects during a classroom studio session.

This drawing will be due at the beginning of class on Thursday, April 14th.

Here are some previous student examples: