LESSON PLANS SUMMER TERM 2023 (2nd half) Lesson 1. Line, tone, hard edges and soft transitions.

In this lesson we'll begin a project looking at ways to use line to mark out boundaries, and tone to describe form - good pencil drawing skills, looking for perfectionism!

Summer Term 2nd half 2023 – lesson 1: Line, tone, hard edges and soft transitions. Describing form.

· Find a circular thing (search the kitchen, your bags, the cleaning cupboared etc.) approximately 1.5 inches diameter.

· Draw around it six times i.e. draw six plain circles. Using your worksheet, change the nature of the circles in the various ways shown, leaving the last one as your ‘control’ – line only.

· The first circle is an example of how to absorb a line into an area of tone so that the line disappears.

· The second circle you’re going to change into a flat penny shape – draw the depth of the penny onto the circle and then use flat soft hatching to describe the flatness on the top surface of the penny.

· The third circle is the good old planet exercise, use plenty of tone to absorb the line from inside the circle to create the dark side, use plenty of tone on the outside of the circle to reveal the light side of the planet. Leave no line showing!

· The fourth circle you can see I’ve used both (curvy) lines and soft tone to create what I call ‘the red blood cell’. Note that I’ve thought about my light source and placed shado9ws accordingly.

· The fifth circle is the description of the earth through lines of Longitude and Latitude.

· The sixth circle is your control – do nothing to it. See that line, in this instance, describes a boundary and no more.

· Now look at the shapes on the reverse of your worksheet and draw them first with an outline. Think about your light sources and shade your shapes accordingly. Gradually absorb the line into your shading. Think about which sides of the shapes can be reached by light and which cannot. Those that cannot be reached by light will be the darkest. Design and do the same to some more complex shapes.

Next lesson: Looking at the drawings of Henry Moore in his Sheep Sketchbook and the way he used line to describe form, tone and texture. Bring sketchbooks, pencils, pens, felt pens etc and some good woolly sheep photos. (I’ll have some for those who don’t have printer or can’t find any pics).