We Value Value Drawing: Geometric Form Value Drawing

Once my art students had filled page after practicing geometric forms, they created a traditional still life drawing using plastic geometric forms. They were required to create the illusion of space using the following techniques:

• Intuitive perspective (parallel lines going back in space with the back lines being the same length or shorter than the ones in front)
• Overlapping (part of a form can't be seen because there is another in front is covering it up), 
• Vertical placement (the form closest to the front is closest to the bottom of the paper) the highter an object is on a page, the further back it appears in space.
• Shading the objects with 3 to 5 values on the gray scale, to create distinct planes and model round forms.

Students with low vision can't be an an art class where the still life is half way across the room, but they can sometimes see the one that is just a few inches in front of them.

Students who are completely blind, used Wiki Stix to trace the objects or measure the proportions and use the principles we learned during our 3D forms practice drawings. I traced their Wiki Stix drawings in hot glue to make them permanent. Value was created using charcoal or pastels. Some students opted for oil pastels because it was less messy, but we only had one gray oil pastel in each box, so that had to be mixed on the drawing with a white or a black to create a second gray.

The light source had to be consistent, meaning every object was dark on the same side and the cast shadow was going in the same direction as the dark side. Highlights were made by leaving paper white or using the eraser to go back in and brighten it up. The edge of a piece of paper was used to use as a stencil and smudge against which created sharp edges.

These basic drawing skills will be used in upcoming projects, and I hope that students will be able to build on them the rest of their lives.