Sunday 22 September 2013

Learning by Teaching

Today I posted this on my wall:
Last week I had a new student here in my studio. It was great. Going back to the basics and telling her lots about graphite techniques and even more about form and shading. Explaining why you put shadows here and not there, why you should do this and not do that.... wow....
All these things I do so automatically and now I need to explain my every action and decision.
It's not easy when someone asks you so many elementary questions. A wise man told me that it's like teaching a foreigner about your own language without being too familiar with all the grammar rules.

Perhaps it was me being the student, not her...

I needed to let it all sink in I guess before I could come to this conclusion. If you can call this a conclusion. It doesn't matter what it is. It was a good thing and that's what matters.  

So talking about this session with my new student, I thought it would be nice if I could show her how you can use atmospheric perspective in a drawing to create a sense of depth. For making this example I had cut off a twig of a Snowberry shrub near our house. I personally don't like them but just like the Cherry Laurel, it looks fine in black and white ;)

I first made a line drawing (my number 12 drawing for the challenge). 


So I created that same twig (using the line drawing as a base) for the tonal study (the no.13), using a bit of atmospheric (aerial) perspective this time.

Sneeuwbes

The photos here didn't turn out so well. I need to try and make better ones. But you get the idea... hope my student does too ;)

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