A little tone
Posted: August 27, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 11 CommentsToday is the first day of the Autumn semester for many CEGEPs in Quebec so that means back to school for me and for my students. This year I’ve decided to change the way I teach Adobe Illustrator by incorporating drawing in a sketchbook as part of the course curriculum. I think that having students draw every day will really help them conceptualize their ideas.Their reactions were mixed when I announced this — some love to draw but others looked a bit horrified and that’s understandable. I’ve given them some ideas of what they can draw and I thought that I would draw with them (you may occasionally see these on the blog). This week’s subject is to draw an object from your house so I picked this garlic braid and used pencil and white conté on Kraft paper from a pad I bought in Paris. The pad and the conté have both been sitting on my desk for months while I focussed on painting but it really does feel great to spend some time looking at an object — really looking at tones and shadows — and not thinking at all about colour.
Beautiful! I really like the subtlety of shading… long live pencils!
And such a different style… are you sure you didn’t steal one of your student’s works? : )
Thanks Ross. I haven’t seen what the students did yet so I must have stolen this from someone else : )
Well, whoever you stole it from, they are pretty good… my suggestion is that you keep stealing from them. : )
Beautiful! I really love this one. Nice effect on the brown paper.
Joan
Thanks Joan. It’s great to hear from you. This was a nice change for me.
Imagine that in a totally black frame, stunning in the right spot! Nice change, very zen!
Glad you like it Angie. Maybe it will go in a frame. It’s very different for me…
Yesterday, saw Van Gogh paintings at the NGC. The interactive studio had iPad with art rage app. So with a couple of places open,I started to digital sketching and enjoyed it but not at the level of the many works posted on the overhead screen. I guess your students would prefer this to paper and pencil. We are following your example and sketching daily.
I’m so glad you are sketching every day Linda. The more people that I get to pick up a sketchbook the happier I am.
I will take a look at the ipads because I am going to see the Van Gogh show later in the week. The students probably would prefer the ipads but the point is for them to touch pencil to paper. I was interested to see some of them looking really excited about the idea today.
I love looking at your drawings and reading your posts, and the comments, especially this one about your teaching life.
Hi Don! It’s always great to hear from you. So glad you are enjoying this.