A Valuable Portrait (AVP)

The Assignment

1. Collect Sketcheck information
   1. Project Notes: A Valuable Portrait
   2. Value Scales Worksheet
2. Complete the project
3. Compare your project to the Grading Rubric and refine it as necessary.

Past Projects avp09-10 AVP08-09 avp07-08

The Project:

"A Valuable Portrait" gives us a chance to study a few thing in art that will be important for almost everything we do. 

The first of these is the chance to study value or the lightness and darkness of things. In this project we will try to match exactly the value of a photocopied photograph to the value of a drawing we complete in graphite. Often, it is surprising how much darker value is in reality that what we think it is. 

The second thing we will study and practice in this project is the technique of crosshatching. This is a process of layering graphite (or other media) by crossing lines over and over. This allows the shading of an area or darkening of a value in this case by filling in the fibers of the paper without damaging the paper by crushing the fibers. This way we can push those values to a very dark quality without making it too shiny or distorting the paper.

Another thing we will study is facial composition. In other words, we will learn how to correctly draw the face using traditional techniques for putting the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears in their proper place on a face. This part is quite challenging for a beginning class so it is not a graded part of the project as value and crosshatching are.