Homework due Tuesday, April 10th

Final project proposal: Portraiture

1. Type one page detailing your plans for your final project.  The description of the final project is below with questions that you must answer in your proposal.  Email me if you have any questions, and remember that this draft of your proposal is a rough draft that can be changed after we discuss it individually in class. Also, you can keep your plan very simple and straight-forward if all these options feel a bit overwhelming.

REMEMBER: You will be working on this project in class and at home on the weekends, so make sure that your project has parts that can be worked on in either location.

2. Bring a print-out of your project proposal to class, as well as reference photos, objects, etc. that you think may be helpful in explaining your project idea to me.  Bring in whatever supplies, photos, artist books, still life objects, etc. you need to do some quick drawings/sketches to further develop your idea in class.

In class on Tuesday, I'll discuss your proposals individually while you create some sketches of compositional ideas, do some smaller practice drawings, etc.  Please feel free to email me with questions and have a good weekend,

Prof. Waxman


Final Project:

 The main theme of this project is portraiture.  Broadly speaking, "a portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person...The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person."  You can do traditional portraits of people's faces if you'd like, or you can depict still lifes, room interiors, etc. with a specific person or personality in mind.  This final project gives you more freedom to choose the subject matter, medium, etc. to use, so this is an opportunity for personal expression in your work.  

1. How will the artworks in your series inter-relate?
(Do they tell a story?  Do they all use a certain style?  Do they all depict a certain subject?)

2. How many artworks will be in your series?  
(Minimum of two artworks in a series, and this number is flexible depending on how your series develops as you work on it)

3. How large will the artworks be?  
(They can all be the same size or different sizes)

4. What will be the subjects of your drawings? If your subjects are not people, which people do the still lifes, etc. represent?  
(Drawings of friends or family? Self-portraits? Hands and feet?  Still lifes, room interiors, views out of windows or landscapes?  Images of animals from photos?)

5. Which drawing mediums will you be using? (You must use at least two different mediums and combining more than one in an artwork is a good idea.  Any black, gray and/or white drawing medium is acceptable.  In addition to what we've used this semester, you can use collage, markers, acrylic paint, spray paint, etc.)

6. Which aspect of the artist's work that you researched will you incorporate into your series? (Some ideas: you could use a composition similar to one of their artworks, or use the same type of subject matter, or try using some aspect of their style or how they use lighting, brushmarks, etc.)

Homework due Tuesday, 4/3

1. Select one or more artworks by one artist (historical or contemporary) to write about. Print out a picture of the artwork(s) for me to see.

• The artwork(s) should be two-dimensional and composed of only black, white and gray tones (little or no color). It could be drawings, prints (etchings, lithographs, etc.), black and white paintings, collages, scenes from a graphic novel, street art, etc.
• This piece will tie into your final project. If you are looking for ideas, you can try to find an artwork by one of the artists we’ve looked at this semester. These artists have included Van Gogh, Ellsworth Kelly, Kathe Kollwitz, Rembrandt, Al Held, Giacometti, Cezanne, Tiepolo, Diebenkorn, Ingres, Matisse, Morandi.  This class blog has some images too in the older posts.

2. Write two or more pages about the artwork(s), double-spaced, font size 12. In your paper, discuss how the artwork(s) relates to the concepts that we’ve discussed in class this semester, listed below.  You must touch on these topics in your paper, but you can discuss other issues in addition to them if you'd like.  Bring a printed copy of your paper and images to class, I won't accept them via email.

• Main Topics: Line, Perspective, Shape, Value, Texture
• This paper replaces the final quiz about drawing terms from this semester, so make sure to write at least a couple sentences about each of the main topics and how they relate to the artwork that you’ve selected.
• If the artwork that you are writing about doesn’t relate to one of these topics (ex. if the drawing doesn’t use line, or linear perspective) then just state that fact in your paper and go into further detail about the topics that you do discuss.
• Feel free to use the ideas that I list below as starting points. You are not obliged to answer all of these questions, they are just meant to guide you if you need ideas about what to write.  Don’t worry whether there are “right” or “wrong” answers to how you interpret the artwork, since there is a personal dimension to interpreting.

Writing Ideas:

Line:

• What types of lines are used? Are they curved, straight, a variety of lines or just one repeated type of line? Are there contour lines that outline the shapes, or cross-hatched lines, or lots of repeated lines and dots, like in a Van Gogh drawing? Are the lines layered over and over in a way that builds structure and depth, like in a Giacometti drawing? Do the lines look delicate and light, or bold and dark, or somewhere in between? Does this give the artwork a certain “personality”? Does it send a certain "message" about the subject of the artwork?

Perspective:

• Does the artwork use linear perspective, such as in an architectural drawing of a room? Does the artwork depict an illusion of depth, such as a landscape with distant mountains, or instead does it appear flat, like a pattern? Why do you think the artist chose to do this? What does it say about the subject matter or what the process of making the drawing was like? Does it seem very detailed and time-consuming or fast and intuitive?

Shape:

• What types of shapes are in the drawing? Organic, geometric, etc.? Do some shapes repeat, or create a sense of rhythm in the composition? If there is a rhythm, how would you describe it if it were music? Does the composition use positive and negative shapes? Do the shapes blend together or do certain shapes have sharp edges? Do the shapes have a range of sizes? Do the different sizes create an illusion of depth?

Value :

• Is the artwork in high contrast (bright lights and heavy darks) or more muted grays? Is the scene overall very light or dark, or somewhere in between? How would you describe the light in the artwork, does it feel like daylight or the afternoon, or dimly lit or brightly lit? What type of atmosphere or mood does this create in the artwork? Joyful or melancholy or mysterious or dull?

Texture/Mark-making:

• How would you describe the texture/mark-making of the artwork? Does it appear rough or smooth, or does the texture change in different areas of the drawing? How do you think the texture effects your emotional response to the artwork? Calming or abrasive?

Homework Due Tuesday, March 27

1. Look at the images below.  The first is a chart of different ways to layer lines (a.k.a. "cross-hatching") to create tones of light and dark.  We worked with this technique in pencil earlier in the semester.  The first two drawings are contemporary still life drawings followed by a few ink drawings by Rembrandt.  All these artworks use a combination of contour line and cross-hatching.  A couple of them also work with ink washes (the last two images).

2. Do a drawing using black india ink and a bamboo pen or calligraphy pen (or both) on bristol paper.  The final piece should be no smaller than 9 x 12 inches (you can do a large drawing if you'd like).  The subject matter should be drawn from observation (a landscape, still life, etc., not an image from a photo).  Use cross-hatching as a way to create shading and spend a minimum of 3 hours on your drawing.

3. If you've used ink before, you can incorporate some ink washes in with the cross-hatching like in the last Rembrandt drawings.  If you haven't used ink before, stick with the cross-hatching and contour lines only, and don't worry if things get messy -- if they do, you can stop your drawing and start one or more drawings but still spend a total combined amount 3 hours (or more) drawing with pen and ink.

Please contact me if you have any questions.



Al Held

Homework due Tues., 2/28

Homework due Tues., 2/28

1. Skim through the reading in the post below.  Particularly look at the diagrams in the second section ("Edges in Horizontal and Vertical Planes"). 

2. Make a drawing no smaller than 9 x 12 in. in pencil and/or charcoal.  Spend three or more hours on the drawing.   For this drawing, do only one of the two options below (Option A or Option B):

• Option A:
• Make a drawing from your imagination based on the principles of linear perspective.  Expect this to be challenging; don't worry if when you finish it feels like the perspective is still off.  This is a problem-solving excercise, so keep the shapes simple and expect to have to change things around. 
• Ideas for this drawing (if you choose this option, you don't need to do both of the ideas right below, only one of them):
• You could invent a simple room using one-point perspective (see Figure 3.6 on page 21 of the reading for an example). 
• You could make an abstract, geometric environment like the ones in the diagrams in the reading below, or like the  painting by Al Held that is above.

• Option B:
• If creating an imaginary environment feels a bit too challenging, then do a drawing from observation like what you did in class today, no smaller than 9x12 in. Make sure that achieving linear perspective is a major element of the composition; for example, you could draw a viewpoint down a long hallway or a corner of your room.  
• In addition to this drawing, draw a copy of one of the diagrams in the second section of the reading ("Edges in Horizontal and Vertical Planes"); for example, you could draw a small copy of Figure 3.3 on page 20.

Homework Reading for Tues., 2/28