A Lesson in Taking students to the darker side.

One of my passions in teaching art is to drive home the idea of a wide value range in student work. So many kids feel confident working in the middle (2B) range and need to be prodded, pushed and more, just to get them to add the darker points of interest, the shades. I tell them I am not their grandmother and so I will not say their work has value just because they made it. They have to prove it to me.

 This assignment makes the drill of value scales a little bit more interesting. First the students create three nesting shapes that cannot touch the edge of the paper or each other. Then they divide each shape into 5 or 6 strips. Marking one strip side as light and furthest away as the other dark, they alternate the direction making the shape above or below it light where the other will be dark, and dark where the other was light. In this way, the darks- juxtaposed against lighter values, will be darker, and the lights against the darks will look even lighter.

This is also quill and ink wash practice for the Moon Flower assignment coming up next.