Friday, April 5, 2013

(Of Some) Value Studies


A variation on the traditional offbeat in-class exercise working up a charcoal study on creating depth through the use of value, and experimenting with subtractive techniques and smooth gradations from dark to light. Along with an homage to an epic pimple, it also doubled as a very special V-Day card.


A second take for another class, and the demos just keep getting weirder and weirder. Or maybe that's just my expression as it evolves throughout the week. This one now adorns the wall above the kitchen table, which is viewable from outside the porch window. So it serves as both a "Beware Of" sign as well as an appetite suppressant.


This demo was initially going to be an abstraction of the aurora, but them mutated into what I think will be marketed as Yog-Sothoth®™ Toilet Paper, for when the Great Old Ones return to wipe away humanity...


Spontaneous creative amusements aside, the practical application of securing one end of a roll of paper towel to the back of the drawing board and extending it into the writing mass of a still-life affords an excellent opportunity to emphasize foreshortening while losing one's mind in the studio.

“That's because only a real artist knows the actual anatomy of the terrible or the physiology of fear - the exact sort of lines and proportions that connect up with latent instincts or hereditary memories of fright, and the proper colour contrasts and lighting effects to stir the dormant sense of strangeness.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Pickman's Model

2 comments:

  1. You mean someone didn't just TP your classroom?

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  2. Making art is supposed to tap into that same well of childlike sense of expressiveness. And/or satisfy some deep yearning - not the first time I've purged inner demons with Quilted Northern...

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