Shades of Gray

I had the pleasure of leading a drawing workshop on Saturday at the Neilson Park Creative Centre in Etobicoke. "Shades of Gray" focused on using various drawing media on toned paper. The idea here is to use the tone of the paper as an overall mid-tone, and draw in the darks and the lights. This challenges our ingrained habit of filling a white sheet with dark marks to indicate form, often with interesting results.

The first exercise was the old "make a circle look like a sphere," using charcoal or carbon pencils, wax-based coloured pencils, and "white charcoal" pencil. (If anyone knows what goes into making General's White Charcoal pencils, I would be very interested)  From the very beginning I encouraged the group to use line for basic layout purposes, but ultimately to pay more attention to the value masses, and how the relative lights and darks interact next to one another.

The next challenge was to draw a carton of eggs, and I don't think it made me any new friends... This one really showed that this technique requires the artist to think differently about representing values. There were times when it was more advantageous to add white to the shadow area of the eggs, because the midtone of the paper was too dark!

After a short lunch break, things were a little more open, with each artist choosing their own subject matter from a selection of reference photos: flowers, a portrait, a landsape, a dilapitated old barn, etc. I demonstrated an ink-wash technique during this time.

The focus and concentration was very intense, and the group tried a number of techniques, including brush drawing, pen drawing, and coloured  and watercolour pencil, often in combinations. They were a tired bunch by the end of the day, but they all felt very pleased with the work they had produced.

I must apologize to some of the participants if their work was not included in the post - my camera let me down, and I lost about half the shots I took. I am very sorry.