Colored Paper

At my community college, I took a Life drawing class. This class had to be the best art class I have ever taken. We first worked on white paper using black charcoal (no color). We worked in the black and white medium so we could understand values and the difference between the difference between light and dark or Chiaroscuro (a common word used by my instructor).

After a couple of months we were allowed to use color paper, and color pastels. While others in my class worked on multi chromatic pieces, I used a monochromatic color palette. When looking at a model, one has to pay attention to the scale of different colors. The lightest color and the darkest color. Most importantly, one looks for the middle color, which should be the paper. When choosing a color of paper, I looked at my choices and back at the model, comparing which color was close to their skin color or even the color reflected from the natural sky lights. By leaving some of the paper show in the drawing, I am saving myself a lot of time with the application of the pastels. I am just focusing on the light and dark of the figure. The end result of one of my drawings is to my left.

I use the same technique with all of my drawings. By focusing on the values of the skin (in this case), I am achieving the realistic look of this 3D drawing on this 2D medium. Even though this is a monochromatic piece, it relates to designing because a designer must see the similarities in colors and values to have a successful design in the end.

Image: Leg, Beth August, 2009