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Painting workshop day 1
Today we worked with Galen Pittman on seeing and drawing values of color. To start, we pushed together two tables and set up a small still life (a cup, a bottle, and a rubber duck) in the middle of a table. Then we warmed up with a five-minute sketch of how we usually draw.

Then, we started on a second, drawing, this time extending the time to ten minutes. While working on this drawing, Galen showed us an example of how we works, using Caitlin's initial picture as an example. He said he tries to draw an object by using other objects in relation to it. He tries to draw everything around the object in order to "let the object draw itself."
I'm a little confused by what he meant by that, but when he showed an example at the end of class I understood a little better (but still not completely).
The example was the dark line in between the two tables pushed together. Galen said that you could drae the line as a line, or you could shade the whole space in, then erase the charcoal around the line (put in the lights around the line). At the end, there'll be two light spaces surrounding a line shape in the middle.
After Galen showed us his process, we continued on our ten minute drawings. He came around and helped us individually.
At first I was using my normal way of drawing still-lifes: first sketch out the outline of the shape of an object, then measure and sketch other objects in relation to the first one.

But... I got tired of drawing my ten minute drawing (...we kind-of lost track of time when we were being helped individually) so I started playing around and trying a different approach to drawing the still life.
I tried a lineless shading a rough shape of an object then "sculpting" the edges out of the rough shape by smoothing away the charcoal along the edges. When it was my turn, Galen suggested that I worked on my values by comparing a shade to the spot right next to it, then use an eraser to pull out the light shades. (He said I did an excellent shade on the rubber ducky, but that was by coincidence!)
This was my final result for the day.

I'm not used to art classes, so it was a little hard to sit still for all that time, but I liked how my brain turned off during this workshop. I'm curious about learning about drawing around an object (it didn't quite seem like drawing the negative space...) I'm also curious about experimenting with the new way of drawing that I was trying...how would I apply this way to painting?

Some people finished earlier than others, so Galen set up a trumpet to work on. I had five minutes before class ended, so this was the start of my sketch.