In life drawing class we have begun to focus on value mapping and shading, paying attention to the way source light and all kinds of reflective lights define the three dimensional form of the figure. The most interesting results so far is with using charcoal (vine sticks and pencils) as well as erasers for reductive lighting on pre-toned paper.

Now... if I had it my way, I'd work mostly with female models, preferably within certain proportions and voluptuousness, because that's where the heights of artistic beauty will be found. But whatever, we gotta take what we're given in a junior college class.

Some weeks back we started loose and quick with 20 minute runs:






(I recommend clicking on the links for larger images, that makes it easier to see what's going on with the line weights, subtler interplay of values, etc.)


Then we spent more time with the nuances of core shadows and reflective lighting. Here's a couple of crops of one pose where I got some "wet" impressionistic strokes going, and a little improvement on getting value and line to work together in harmony:









Here's another pose, a shadowed back gives way to subtle variations in tone and value after observing enough...





And most recently we toned the whole paper with charcoal and used eraser and more charcoal to play with light and shadow, etc: