All three students were there - MG (manga girl), PL (Pinterest lady), and SAG (serious art guy). MG doesn't seem to understand the unspoken rule that once you pick a seat in the first class that's your seat forever. So instead of sitting next to PL I sat next to her. Not exactly bad but a breach of classroom etiquette.
Once again the instructor pulled out his very large pad of newsprint and gave us all pieces. I'm glad that we're using his paper for all of this because the class supply list had us buy a pad of rather expensive paper for use with pastels. I'd hate to waste nice paper on this. I'm also interested to find out if we're even going to use it. But I digress.
Tonight's class was very basic - trace shapes, shade shapes. The most complex thing was the use of a vanishing point. I'm not saying that it was bad at all. Shading is a basic technique that is necessary to learn. And I'm glad that he had a lesson plan and didn't do another "just draw" session.
Here's our first assignment - a pyramid-like shape and a sphere:
I'm not overly fond of that line on the triangle that makes it into two planes but gives no depth, which is the intention of shading. It's also not my class.
He had posterboard templates for the shapes and a ruler for the baseline. Around they went and off we went. He also handed out charcoal pencils for us to use (even if we had our own) and later in the process offered people willow charcoal sticks. I wasn't offered and I would have declined. It was too dark for me in this exercise.
My result:
Yes. I know they're not in the same order but that's because he handed out the templates in the other order. He also didn't say the line we were drawing was the baseline until I'd already drawn on the shapes. I simply couldn't deal with that triangle so I made it into a pyramid.
I think I got the concept down. Charcoal pencil, smudged using a paper towel. I know the shadow on the sphere is very light for what it should be but I also wasn't going to sit there and darken it up when I knew what the concept was.
SAG was working with all his own supplies and shading like a MOFO. He had a waning moon going on there he had such a solid black section. MG was working quite well and got excited when she saw my pyramid, saying that now she knew what had been bothering her. I couldn't see PL because she was too far away.
Here's the comparison shot of the example vs my attempt:
Overall I think I got the concepts down and while I knew it wasn't great I also wasn't going to spend a lot of time futzing on a class demo piece. That gets boring to me when there should be more to learn.
And there was! Next up was a cube and a cylinder:
Way off over the cylinder is the vanishing point for the cube.
So we're learning perspective as well as blending. Sneaky...
Anyway. Some ruler work, some posterboard templates, and off we went. Note that the cylinder is open at the top. Our template was a rectangle and we had to add the rounded bits.
Honestly the shading on the front face of the cube is something I would have to look into and figure out myself. I'm not sure how it would look with the light source and I don't know that the example is correct. But that's minor.
My result:
They're in the right order this time. You can't see my vanishing point because it's under the paper at the top but I left it and the guidelines in place. The cube looks a little ragged because I didn't use a ruler when I darkened the lines. Again, practice piece!
Here's the comparison shot of the example vs my attempt:
Yes. That's my first drawing under the example. Again I think that I got the concepts he was trying to teach even if I didn't go to the extremes in the example.
I was the only person turning my drawing board to make it easier to do directional strokes of the pencil. Why make it more difficult for myself when I can turn the thing ninety degrees and make nice, smooth lines?
I was working with trying different ways to blend the pencil while I worked. Mostly I went from light to dark so I wasn't dragging more color into areas where I didn't want it.
The handout for this class showed four different kinds of shading strokes - layers, scribbles, hatching, and blending. I did try a little of the scribbling but found it wasn't going to work for me with these strong geometric shapes. Maybe on more organic things or in different areas it would be something to try and I might do just that.
Thus endeth the class. SAG left early and won't be there for the next class. Life and stuff. It happens and he was polite about telling the instructor so we wouldn't be waiting or wondering.
While we all finish early I'd rather that he not try to pack too much into a class so we have to rush and possibly miss things. I do these exercises quickly without consciously trying to do them quickly. I just do. In this case shading such large objects becomes an exercise in tedium so practice for me would be on much smaller ones.
We'll see what next week brings.
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