Home School Art Lesson, Drawing A Focused Highlight

Spectrum Home School Community 5/9/13

Effecting a highlighted area in a drawing.

In class pictures were distributed for the students to find inspiration off of.  These pictures were from old calenders; most were of lighthouses or structures that had a major area of white or negative space.

Using pencil the students drew the lighthouses and surrounding seascape. Since the light house is white little is needed to do except a gradual shading.

The white lighthouse is lost in the sky since most students want to leave the sky blank but by using a dirty blending stub the sky is stained so that the sky was a value darker than the lighthouse. Some have problems keeping the sky smooth and not showing the marks of the blending stub. It requires patience and several minutes of rubbing. A tissue may be used to smooth out the blending stub marks. It may need to have the charcoal or pencil rubbed on and removed a few times to get the desired effect.

Charcoal drawing of Light house with sky a value darker.

The example above is not the best I admit, but it shows the sky is a value slightly darker than the white lighthouse. The effect is to make the lighthouse brighter than the rest of the drawing. This moves the foreground  forward and gives the effect of distance.

Another example may be seen at the link below of a boy in a white shirt. The shirt looks white because the background is toned down as described above.
http://artistadron.blogspot.com/2013/05/quick-sketch-while-at-cafe.html

The link below shows another example of a creamer with a dogwood blossom. Here the dogwood blossom is bright because the table was stained to a slightly darker value as described above.
http://artistadron.blogspot.com/2013/05/charcoal-sketch-of-creamer-and-dogwood.html

(c)Adron Dozat