For several years now, I have continued a small series of small black ink drawings based on film stills I grab the from old Film Noir movies that I love. These drawings have no grand conceptual purpose. They just keep my hand nimble and give me something to do when my brain is tired of having to think so much when it comes to my everyday work. Also, given their small size and the fact that many midtowners think they're "cool", they often sell. I am posting a few examples of this series here because my own particular approach to value and my EXTREME breakdown of the image into planes of value is, I think, pertinent to what we're doing in this class. In these, I give myself rules and limits:
1. The drawing must mimic the proportions, perspective, and formal composition of the original still accurately. In other words, I must stay true to the director's decisions when framing this scene.
2. I can only use pure black, the white of the paper, and ONE mid-tone grey (a wash of ink mixed with water), and no other values.
3. I look for the abstract shapes formed by the planes of value in each original still.
4. I can use horizontal hatching marks over the white paper or grey areas of the drawing to give subtleties of value.
This means that I force myself to ignore the smallest of details and extremely subtle value shifts and break the image down, instead, into broad "blocks" of value, which create dynamic contrast and a push and pull of space that at once seems both abstract AND representationally (or, at least, photographically) accurate.
Soon you will be working with ink washes. One of these assignments will be to work with only four values. So, perhaps, looking at these may jog your brain to start thinking in that manner already.
These are so graphic because of the limited values. I'd be annoyed by breaking the values down to such basics. Anytime I see work like this I think about Zak Smith, for some reason.
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