Middle Ground Value Drawing

Now that my Art students had a taste of how to draw geometric forms, they were ready to apply those principles to every day still life objects. We took a tour around the art room and asked "What geometric forms make up this pencil sharpener? How about this rolling pin? Water sprayer? 10 pound weight?" The world seems like a pretty simple place when you can break it down into cylinders, cubes, spheres, and rectilinear prisms. 

Students picked 3 objects to draw starting with measuring out the proportions and then breaking it down into tweaked geometric forms. I'd have to remind them to draw elipses with smooth repetitive gestures, rather than rough, bumpy lines and trying to get it right in one go.

This would be another value drawing by the time we were finished, but rather than start with white paper and build light grays into darker grays, we started with a middle gray sheet of paper and pushed values in either direction using chalk or oil pastels. It's another way to work in value, and it can yield really nice results.

Again, low students worked with their objects close enough to handle and see. Students who were completely blind used Wiki Stix to draw and sometimes trace their objects. Ones student was confused why he would lay down a bottle of paint to trace on his paper, when it was standing up. He wanted to just trace the circular bottom of the bottle. Even after showing how the drawing would eventually be viewed vertically, and having him try to trace the standing bottle with the paper being held vertically behind it, it was still a foreign concept.

The ultimate goal would be to get rid of the lines all together by pulling value from the line with lines behind darks and darks behind lights to create the "push and pull" that you. need to create the illusion of three dimensions, but that was too much to ask for every student depending on their level of vision. I think most students were happy to have the tools they needed to break down objects and values into smaller steps and create something they were proud to share.