Drawing in the Dark

SHAPES OF SHADOWS PORTRAITS

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

india ink on smooth bristol w/ watercolor & collage

This handsome young man is senior Sean Dezfulian,

and he is my teacher assistant for my 2nd period class this year.

One of his duties is to model for my drawing students whenever the need arises.

Well, it arose for my 2nd level drawing students recently.

I put Sean in a comfy chair, 

in the dark,

 in a corner of my room with only a spotlight on his head.

Then my drawing students walked around him until they found the perfect spot to draw from.

But the catch was they could only draw the shapes of his shadows,

that's right, 

they could only draw the shapes of the shadows on his face

which is actually pretty challenging.

This is way different thAn how they normally work.

So let's see how Shawn turned out...

We start with the work of junior Jonathan Hsu.

I'm finding that Jonathan loves to work in watercolor,

so after he inked Shawn in,

he really had fun putting in a colorful array of watercolors.

And then to finish off his piece he brought in a bit of white pen for added details 

which adds such a nice touch.

Senior Michael Cantu took a whole different approach,

 choosing a profile view and sweeping brush strokes filled with watercolor.

He also brought in a bit of paper collage to add  more visual depth thru darker value.

Jovani Garica, 

another of my amazing seniors,

choose an analogous color scheme to work in with paper collage coming from the mouth;

giving us a glimpse into Shawn's love of music.

And then there is the work of junior Elias Rodriguez.

Always a tad on the dark side,

frequently throwing in a bit of his signature style watercolor washes that he has perfected,

and then bringing in these cool linear elements.

Wow!!!

And lastly we have senior Nathan Chong whose portrait of Sean I feel looks the most like him.

Nathan has really done a tremendous job drawing the shapes of the shadows.

Notice the very subtle watercolor washes in the background?

He's also taken yellow tissue paper,

collaged it down and zentangled over top to pull all the black ink together.

Brilliant piece Nathan!