Value Activities Critique

The value scale and composition activities were both useful means of exploring the concept of value and the effects that can be achieved by employing differents types of value contrast in a drawing. Creating a value scale is always harder than it looks and requires a fair amount of tweaking and adjusting in order to get the correct progression from high key to low key. The value composition was very enjoyable, as it can be intimidating to approach a blank piece of paper (or canvas) with no restrictions on what can be produced in terms of composition, materials, color, etc. Approaching a drawing with a more narrow goal (in this case, exploring value contrast) can be oddly liberating, as the weight of infinite possibilities is lifted to some extent. The value composition also was instructive in the powerful effects that can be achieved simply by the use of value contrast without any color being used at all. It made me think that doing a value study/composition might be a good first step to approaching a painting or other work that ultimately will use color.