Sanford Biggers

This video has very little to do with drawing, but Biggers is an extremely interesting guy, nonetheless. This is a studio visit with him:

A Reminder About What We'll Be Doing This Week

Erasure Out of Charcoal Ground: Planes
o Still Life—Planes
o Materials:
• Vine and compressed charcoal, black conte, chamois, hard eraser, good-quality white paper (22”x30”)

A Few Links To Good Blogs By Past Drawing 2 Students

http://www.lesterphotography.blogspot.com/

http://lexiedrawn.blogspot.com/

http://drawing2lmcdowell.blogspot.com/

Reminder About What We'll Be Doing, And What To Bring, On Thursday

Composition: Positive-Negative or Figure-Ground relationships
o Importance of edge of picture plane
o Use of viewfinder
o Erasure from caharcoal ground
o Materials
• Vine and compressed charcoal, white conte, kneaded and hard erasers, spray fixative, chamois, 3 sheets of white bond paper (18”x24”)

This is a chamois...

You will DEFINITELY need a HARD eraser...

This is vine charcoal...

Make sure to have WHITE conte...

This is what compressed charcoal looks like...

...and this is the brand that our supply store carries.

Lava Soap And Magic Erasers

I mentioned these products in class already, but let me share a little learned-from-experience wisdom here, as well. I would suggest you purchase two fairly inexpensive products that will help you beyond belief:

Lava Soap...

...which comes in a pump bottle like this...

...or in bars like this.

And Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.

Lava Soap has been around forever, and has pumice mixed in with the cleansing soap. The pumice is an exfoliant which removes the top layer of dead skin cells. That's where the charcoal is. It'll also get up under your fingernails nicely if you use it well.

Magic Erasers are a bit newer, having only been developed in the past decade, but DAMN do they work! They are the perfect thing to take dirty charcoal fingerprints off of walls, desks, chairs, 3D design work, etc. without damaging the surface of whatever you are cleaning.

Neither of these will make for a huge investment on your part. A few bucks spent now and you avoid a lot of problems down the road.

Welcome

Alright folks, this is where we begin. If you are reading this, then I trust you have followed the directions I gave you and have established your own class blog. Please DO NOT forget to e-mail me the url address of your blog. I will be placing links to everyone's blogs in the "Student Blogs" section to the right. This will allow everyone to more easily locate your information and provide a central hub from which all of the blogs can be accessed. It would be best if I had your url BEFORE THURSDAY so that I can actually see everyone's blogs before class.

Your class blog is an important part of the workload in this class. I personally feel that technology is such an integral and all-encompassing aspect of our lives, careers, and even social interactions, that to deny its influence--even when studying an institution as old and traditional as drawing--is ridiculous. Therefore, this blog counts as a percentage of your grade in this class. A small percentage, to be sure, but enough to push a plus or minus behind a letter grade. So, a good blog could be that one deciding factor that pushes your final course grade from, for example, a C+ to a B. So, please don't neglect it.

Don't forget to enter your first post. Make sure to blog a little bit about what you have come to MCA for. What is your major? What attracted you to MCA? What do you want to do in the future once you have received your degree? Etc.

Also, don't forget to attach a pocket in the back of your sketchbook like the one in the following example: