Picture-Making

Before we proceed, let’s take a moment to reflect on the lessons that we’ve taken from the past four weeks during our conceptual analysis of Picture-Making.

A picture is an arrangement of dark and light shapes on a flat surface.

We’ve been using white paper. So that’s not a picture yet. It’s just one light shape covering an entire flat surface.

It becomes a picture when we divide it into dark and light. You can do that in a billion different ways, and we’ve been doing it in the most basic way possible: dark ground/light figure.*

We could stop there. It’s a picture. 

But we take it a step further: we divide that figure into light and dark, just as we did to the entire picture plane. We are sub-dividing. Like mitosis. Our picture is growing in complexity. We have been dealing with the human figure, so in this case we are dividing the figure into a light side and a shadow side.

But here’s the kicker: even though we divide that light figure into light and dark, we keep the whole figure still lighter than the dark (black) ground.

We hear Howard Pyle whispering in our ear again: "Your lightest dark should never be lighter than your darkest light."

The wording makes the idea sound complex, but it’s really pretty simple. It’s just about keeping our pictures organized:

All dark areas should be dark.

All light areas should be light.

But you can have a whole variety of light values in the light areas, and a whole variety of dark values in the dark areas. We just don’t want our pictures to get fragmented with a whole bunch of light and dark areas that break up the forms that are essential to the message that we want to communicate.

Here is a good example of what we’re talking about:

Look how Sterling Hundley composes this portrait.

This is what I was talking about when I suggested that Dave make his map of Somalia all the same value, but with a wide variety of hues. Why?

Look at the grey scale version:

Look at the light side of the head. The planes are all basically the same value. Look back up at the color version- at the light side of the head. It’s the warm and cool colors that give the subtle effect of advancing and receding planes.   

Hundley wanted to first grab the viewers attention with a bold value pattern, so he gave us a light shape(face), a middle value shape (background and shirt), and a shape of pure black (hair). (The image could have been more striking had there been some area(s) of pure white. Maybe he and the art director decided that it might have distracted the viewer from the accompanying article?) 

His second goal was to communicate a likeness of John Mayer, and he wanted it to be clear and simple, so he kept his light shape (the face) light, but was still able to add variety within using hue shifts. Too many value shifts may have fragmented the form, making for a weaker value statement, thus making the image less able to catch the eye, thus making the concept (in this case the likeness) more difficult to grasp.

A good rule of thumb is this: within a shape, let hue variation be your first option for giving the illusion of form. Use value variation only when absolutely necessary.

In other words: if you have the option of giving the illusion of form using hue or giving the illusion of form using value, choose hue first. Hue changes can, of course only take you so far, so then you can move into value shifts. But if you jump right into using a whole variety of values, you run the danger of fragmenting your picture, and obscuring your concept.

Sterling Hundley is, by the way, one of the most successful young  contemporary illustrators working today. Here's a few of his more popular images:

View more of his intricate, well composed paintings, with their unique style and often times complex concepts here: http://sterlinghundley.com/

Another great example of how to create a striking image by a careful organization of value shapes is this demonstration by American Illustration legend Mark English: http://illustrationacademy.com/Demo.htm

The Clear and The Obscure

OK- but- as we always say: there is no hard, fast rule about what’s good and what’s bad in picture-making.

The truth is this:

Certain approaches produce certain effects.

Then the question is this:

What effect do you want to produce?

Maybe your picture is meant to convey a sense of obscurity, a sense of mystery- then perhaps some areas of light and dark should be kept less distinct. For example, let’s take a look at one of the greatest teachers that I’ve ever had, and whom some of you currently have: Leon Steinmetz.

His works are not illustrations, but rather contemplations of ideas found in classical literature. Here we have a few drawings from his series “Dante Meditations”.

The artist describes his process: 

“I picked up some Dante – ‘The Divine Comedy.’ I was reading ‘The Inferno,’ and started, almost subconsciously, doing drawings, sort of meditating with pen in hand.” 

So although we see some forms emerging out of the darkness (a few images of Charon, ferryman of Hades perhaps?) Steinmetz obscures the forms by allowing one value shape to merge with another, creating the effect of the atmosphere that one might find on the shore of the river Styx.

See more here:http://leonsteinmetz.com/

The guy who first popularized this fragmenting of form was in was Caravaggio. To him it was more important that shapes be divided into light and dark. As you know, the effect is called Chiaroscuro- literally translated: clear/obscure. 

Wow! Talk about creating a focal point and obscuring the secondary elements via value contrast. 

And take a look at my contemporary favorite: Mark Tennant.

It’s obvious that a clear depiction of the figure is only a secondary concern. Primarily is arranging dark and light shapes in and of themselves. In many cases he will obscure or fragment the form by uniting figure and ground* through like hues and values.

See more here: http://www.marktennantart.com/

*Keep this in mind- when we say “figure” in the context of “figure/ground”, we don’t necessarily mean “human figure”. In that context “figure” refers to any shape imposed upon another shape (which is the ground). So when we are looking at a still life, for example, there is a figure-ground relationship: the objects of the still life are the “figure”, and sum of the surface upon which they sit and the background is the “ground”.

2 Amazing International Children's Book Artist's

Now that we’ve seen the work of American illustrator Sterling Hundley, let’s look at two of the most popular and successful international children’s book authors: from Italy we have Alessandra Cimatoribus, and from France, Rebecca Dautremer.

Cimatoribus is known for her unique simplification of shapes to describe forms, and of her limited palettes. Take a look- she often uses only a pair of compliments and white to create an entire range of hue, value, and intensity. Pretty awesome.

See more here:

http://www.alessandracimatoribus.com/

And now Rebecca Dautremer. She is, hands down, my favorite contemporary children’s book artist. She’s the best. Character. Composition. Color. I have no words. See for yourself:

And more:

http://www.rebeccadautremer.com/

Examples from Class

Take a look at these stunning examples of arrangements of dark and light shapes on flat surfaces:

 T H A T ' S   S O M E   S E R I O U S  C O M P O S I T I O N

Grades

Grades:

Here are your grades from the past 3 assignments. There are some of you for whom I have no grade because of an absence or because I do not have one or more of your pieces. If you see that your line has 0’s or no numbers at all, please see me in my office at the end of next class. 

11/15/11

Assignment 7

Thumbnails

Student Code	15 Done	3 Done	3 Values	Critique	In Class	Blog	Total
2192	1	3	2	1	1	1	9
6453	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2465	1	3	3	1	1	1	10
6756	1	3	3	1	1	1	10
1966	1	3	2	1	1	1	9
6879	1	3	3	1	1	1	10
4578	1	3	1	1	1	1	8
8925	1	3	2	1	1	1	9
3778	1	3	2	1	1	1	9
8257	1	3	3	1	1	1	10
3489	1	3	3	1	1	1	10
4674	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2457	1	3	1	1	1	1	8
8742	1	3	2	1	1	1	9
1964	1	3	2	1	1	1	9
3466	1	3	2	1	1	1	9

11/8/11

Assignment 6

Figure Invention  

Student Code	Blog	Figure/Ground	Light/Shadow	Shapes/Edges	Total
2192	1	2	2	2	7
6453
2465	1	2	3	3	9
6756	1	3	3	3	10
1966	1	3	3	1	8
6879	1	2	2	2	7
4578	1	3	1	0	5
8925	1	3	3	3	10
3778	1	3	3	1	8
8257	1	3	3	3	10
3489	1	3	3	3	10
2457	1	2	2	2	7
8742	1	3	2	2	8
1964	1	3	3	3	10
3466	1	1	2	2	6

11/1/11 

Assignment 5 

Final Museum Drawings/ 35 Figures 

Student Code	35 Figures	Figure/Ground	Light/Shadow	Shapes/Edges	Total
2192	1	1	3	2	7
6453	1	2	2	2	7
2465	1	2	2	1	6
6756	1	3	2	3	9
1966	1	1	2	2	6
6879	1	2	3	1	7
4578	0	0	0	0	0
8925	1	3	3	2	9
3778	1	3	2	1	7
8257	1	2	3	3	9
3489	1	3	2	2	8
4674	0	0	0	0	0
2457	1	2	2	2	7
8742	1	2	2	2	7
1964	0	0	0	0	0
3466	1	2	3	1	7