Welcome and First Homework Assignment

Welcome, incoming class! I'm excited to be working with you for the upcoming year. My hope is that you will all participate as much as possible in all facets of the course and in so doing inspire each other to make the most of your freshman year at SVA.

As we went over quite a bit of material on the first day of class, I want to urge you to take a few minutes to reread the syllabus on your own. Please let me know if you have any questions, and if you do just send me an e-mail at the address listed above. I'll make every effort to respond to your mails as quickly as I can.

For your first homework assignment (due next week), I'd like you to purchase the basic materials you'll need for the course (see page titled Basic Materials List to the right), and then to make a contour drawing following the specifications below. Please read the entire assignment carefully.

CONTOUR DRAWING

On one of your sheets of sketch vellum, make a contour drawing using only Ebony pencil. Your contour may be a continuous contour or not, but it should not be a blind contour (i.e., go ahead and look at your drawing as you draw).

Set up some kind of familiar object on a windowsill in your room. Before beginning to draw, take a few minutes to study your object, the windowsill, and the images you see in the panes of the window, taking special note of small details. Concentrate on discerning edges -- both those that delineate the objects from the space around them and all the internal edges. As you begin to draw, concentrate on letting your pencil "feel out" the edges you see; let your hand respond to their various qualities by applying and releasing pressure, speeding up and slowing down, etc. Remember that in a contour drawing, you are working with line only (i.e., no shading or modeling of any sort).

Be as selective as you wish, but your drawing should include something of the object on your sill, the window itself, and whatever you see through the glass (foreground, middleground, and background). The quality of your line should reflect the differences in visibility (i.e., objects closest to your eye will call for bolder lines than those furthest away, etc.).

Do not use photographs for this assignment! It is important that you work from direct observation, so set yourself up in a place where you can work for several hours.