My First Reductive Value Drawing

Everything in this image was white, but the image itself is a reductive value drawing completed with vine charcoal. The objects in the still life sat on boxes covered in white sheets background. Beginning from the left, there is a styrofoam sphere that peeks out from the left side of the page slightly behind it and to the right stands a bare, white paper towel roll. A can to the right of the paper towel roll casts a dark shadow on the styrofoam ball. All three objects sit on a ledge draped in a sheet, which wrinkles up slightly as gravity pulls it toward the bottom of the page. The ledge covered in the drape takes up the bottom left quarter of the page. Slightly behind and to the right of the can is a skull, facing the left side. The end of a bone can be seen peeking out next the skull, slightly in front of a black wine bottle. The bone, shifted a bit off of the second ledge casts a small, dark shadow on the drape below. Underneath these objects and next to the first drape there is a slab of rock, like worn marble with a design engraved in it, although the engraving cannot be seen, only the faint shadows cast from it onto the marble. The corner of a box pokes out from behind the slab, the side nearest the viewer covered in a dark shadow. At the very bottom of the page, at the edge of the first ledge, lies a small hermit crab shell.

To draw this still life, I first covered my page in vine charcoal, then began drawing in any shapes I saw in a darker tone than the background.

Afterward, I used a kneaded eraser to lighten parts of the drawing with a lighter value, add highlights, and blend. I used the vine charcoal to darken spots with darker values create shadows. At first, the local values of all the objects were blending together, but after emphasizing a few parts of the drawing, most of the objects became distinct. Occasionally, I saw the need to use compressed charcoal to bring out darker parts of the still life where the vine charcoal wasn’t doing the job.

Post #2 here we go

Black and white drawing a metal cube, 2 sets of chopsticks and a shot glass. The objects are left white with horizontal and vertical lin
Metal cube, chopsticks and shot glass represented with crosshatching and negative space shading

Cross hatching & Negative space

In this drawing the process of crosshatching and the emphasis of Negative space is used. Cross hatching is where lines are used to represent the shape of an object more, similar to Longitude and Latitude lines on a globe. Negative space is the gap between objects that create their own unique shapes.
In this piece I drew objects around my room emphasizing on their 3 dimensional shape as well as the 2 dimensional shapes created by the gaps between them.

Reductive Value Still-Life

A black and white charcoal reductive value drawing of a still life containing a funnel, milk carton, book, and ball.

The drawing shows a funnel, milk carton, book, and small ball resting in front of a draped curtain. To create this drawing, I covered the paper with vine charcoal. Then, I selectively erased to create the forms of the still life and used compressed charcoal and a white conte crayon to emphasize the lights and darks of the still-life. While this project mostly covers value, aspects basic forms and shapes are also present, as well as negative shapes.

Vine Charcoal Drawing

This is a sketch of someone I drew from my Drawing I class. Vine charcoal is the main medium; A circle was the main basic for the skull and an oval for the the flesh of the face.

#art #drawing #vinecharcoal #sketch #draft
Basic Shapes and Form

Sketching this way was particularly difficult in that I usually don’t draw base shapes when starting a new piece.

Reductive Value Origami

A black and white charcoal drawing of an origami swan, a ball, and a broken sphere.
A reductive value charcoal drawing. An origami swan sits in the foreground in a rounded platform. Behind the head of the swan is a ball, and next to the ball is half a sphere that looks as if part of it has chipped off. The light source is to the right of the drawing, casting shadows to the upper left of the piece. The value of the swan is mostly light, with many highlights on the creases of the origami paper.

Reductive value is the process of adding value to the paper and then erasing to create shapes and definition. After establishing lighter value shapes, I went in with a darker charcoal and added shadows, as well as using a white conte crayon to add highlights when an eraser wasn’t enough. Since this image is so zoomed in on the still life, there are only three major forms in frame. The origami swan is the focal point, and the lightest form in the image.

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