Hatching and Crosshatching

Volume and Value.

One way of creating the illusion of volume in our drawings is to use modeling.
Modeling represents the change from light to dark across the surface of a shape (the highlights and shadows cast on an object).

Modeling (or shading) is all about the use of Value.

Values is a gradation of tone from light to dark.
White> Gray> Black

***Remember: Value is not color!***
Colors have value but value is the lightness or darkness of the color, thus you can have a red and a blue that are the same value, despite being different colors.
(One way to see this is to convert a color picture into grayscale/ black & white.)

There are many ways to create value in art. One method we are using is mark-making: hatching, crosshatching, and stippling. Below are some extra examples:

(click to see the images larger)

from 200 Projects by Valerie Colston

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

And as you work on your own assignments don't forget there is no one absolute correct way to use hatching. (see below) There are different paths to the same destination, find the one that works best for you and your piece!






Student example of stippling

Negative Space

Our first step was learning to perceive edges and represent them in LINE.

Now we are moving on to the next step which is learning to see and the use our lines to draw SHAPES. Geometric shapes, organic shapes, even implied shapes...

As an exercise in learning to perceive and draw shapes, this week we focused on NEGATIVE spaces.
This may be a tricky concept at first, but to make better drawings remember what Betty Edwards said:

“If negative spaces are given equal importance to positive forms, all parts of a drawing seem interesting and all work together to create a unified image.”

So what is negative space in a drawing?

Here are some extra examples:

(click on images for a bigger view)

Now if we were standing in front of this actual building it would be more difficult to see the edge of the negative space, but in our drawings, the picture plane makes up the edge of our negative space (as you can see clearly in the image on the left).

The next example is a more detailed
example of the negative spaces created
by a chair. I colored in a couple of
the corresponding shapes:

So, in the end, NEGATIVE space
is the area around the positive object.
And by learning to see the shapes
created by those empty spaces,
we can improve our observation
and drawing skills.

Because don't forget learning to draw
is a lot about learning to SEE.
(Sometimes in a whole new way!)

More examples of contour and line

Here's another artist's selection of contour style drawings. Her subjects are not inanimate- as yours should be- but I think they are another excellent example of what can be done with LINE.


Find more artworks like this on artreview.com

contour line, pencil

contour line, pencil
Originally uploaded by Moonage Daydreamer

Here's an example of a contour drawing I found by an artist on Flickr.

Week 2- More notes on CONTOUR

This is a drawing of a hand:

These are also drawings of hands, but these three are focused on
representing the CONTOUR of the hands.

See the difference?

(The top hand is done in conte and the bottoms hands are done in charcoal.)

Often when we think about drawings or make drawings, we are thinking about contour drawings. As we discussed in class, contour drawings use line to represent edges- Edges of planes, shapes and values.
There are no black lines going around the sides of your hands, but you see the edge of your hand and use a line to describe that edge.

Thus, we learn about contour drawing as a tool to help us learn to SEE those edges and begin to describe them on paper with line.

Betty Edwards in "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" tells us that as we learn to draw we are actually learning how to see. We start by learning to see edges.

So why do we do Blind Contour Drawings?

(blind contour drawings of shoes)

Our minds want to rebel against doing these drawings, but by forcing ourselves to do them we give our "thinking" mind a chance to take a break and let our eyes take over.
Our minds make up symbols for objects. For example: Our mental symbol for a table is a rectangle, but if you just draw a rectangle you aren't drawing what a table looks like.
We have to learn to stop drawing these symbols, start drawing what we see, and not what we think an object look like.

(blind contour drawings of faces)

So, in blind contour drawings we spend our time looking at the subject- not at the paper. Blind contour is about process, and not about the finished drawing. The process of seeing edges and making lines is the first step on the way to better drawing. When we start out trying to make "perfect drawings" it is harder to get away from the symbols of objects we have in our mind.

Practice more blind contour drawing to improve your seeing skills.
Remember it is about the process not the final result on the paper.

To learn to draw you will have to make lots of mistakes, experiment, waste paper, and not be afraid to make some ugly drawings!