A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Can't you just picture Mr. Rogers now?  It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood, Won't you be my neighbor?
Okay, enough of that... but we really are lucking out with some gorgeous weather here in good ole Richmond and I'm happy to say that our professors are obliging!  Yesterday we went out to sketch and tried employing some new rendering techniques we learned from a workshop with instructor Wei Dong, author of Color Rendering and professor at University of Wisconsin.  Here are some of the things I learned:

When sketching, use these steps:
Analyze- Take a moment to think about the drawing and how you want to set it up.
Initiate- Choose key points or lines that will help dictate the rest of your drawing.
Elaborate- You know...sketch
Assess- Look at the drawing and see what may need to be changed or enhanced.

When rendering, keep these things in mind:
Light- ALWAYS leave white space.  This can really help strengthen the depth of a drawing.
Dark- Keep layering marker on top of itself to achieve a darker color.
Contrast- Usually where there is a higlight, there is a dark shadow adjacent to it.  Use these spaces to create an engaging drawing.
Shadow- Wherever the shadow hits an object will be its darkest and it will fade out from there.
Reflection- Leave some white space even on shadowed sides to indicate reflection from floor or other objects.

I like having some strict guidelines to think about when I'm drawing (heck, I like strict guidelines in pretty much every situation...) because it helps me to remember things!  I mean, I'm a play by the rules kinda gal- you don't want to mess with me during a board game.

Back to drawing...

We walked down West Avenue today and quickly set up a perspective sketch (I rushed through this part a little too quickly).  We were told to bring only ROYGBIV markers with us.  Because of that, I ended up with a very unusual drawing compared to what I usually do.  I tend to stray away from bold colors, but since that's all I had to work with, I ended up with this:

So, there's the installment for Thursday!  Just think- it's almost Friday!  I always say Thursdays are better than Fridays because of the sheer anticipation.  Hoo HA