ON CHARCOAL DRAWING
Placing the light on the page by erasing the dark away was very unique, and I found this to represent the value more than on a photograph because you could place exactly where the light was, and maybe exaggerate it in some parts. Techniques such as only erasing where the light actually hits and not outlining the objects allowed me to better represent the value. Working with charcoal made representing the value easier to accomplish because you can lightly erase the charcoal to get many grays or erase it all the way to get sold blacks and whites. The one downside with charcoal(besides being messy) is that it is hard to control exactly where you want your values because erasing isn't very precise.
I stretched and explored because I didn't have many different values in the beginning, but added a variety of more because of the eraser-pencil and white pencil that were introduced to us, which allowed to have very solid whites in some places. I also did not have the value of the cloth behind the objects in the beginning but later added it because I learned how to show a flow of value and represent that in the cloth.
If I had to change one thing, I would have started out by lightly erasing where I wanted the values to be and not just adding them on over time, it would help with an overall view of the final product.
ON VALUE in Drawing & Photography
Light and contrast were very important to both projects, but I feel more so in the charcoal project, which I also found the most success in, because you are physically placing the light on the page instead of just capturing it. This allowed for more expressive values because you could slightly modify where the light was actually hitting to have more values and show more light, unlike in photography where it was much more difficult to do this.
Value is very important to pay attention to because lighting can change the mood of an entire piece. Art that is dark and contains almost no light sets a scary and mysterious mood where as very vibrant picture with lots o white sets a happy or excited mood on the piece.
