EXPLORING THE MONOCHROME:
The purpose of this week’s assignment is two-fold: first, to explore one of the ways in which color can impart meaning to images, and second, to explore the rich possibilities of the monochrome. You will be working from a black and white photograph (see below) and making a drawing in which color is used to imbue the image with a psychological mood or atmosphere.
Choosing an image: From a magazine, newspaper or book (no working from the computer screen!), select a black and white photograph with a wide range of tonal values. Using either a photocopier or digital equipment, enlarge the photograph so that the image is roughly the size of a standard 8.5” x 11” piece of paper. Be sure to bring this image to class next week to display along with your drawing.
Making your drawing: For your drawing, which will be based on this image, use pastels and either your white sketch vellum or a piece of pastel paper comparable in size to your vellum. Since this will be a monochromatic drawing, choose a single hue that you feel represents the psychological mood or atmosphere you want to endow the image with. To achieve a range of tonal values and intensities, mix a variety of colors into your main hue. (For example: If your drawing is to be blue, mix your blue with black, white, brown, red, yellow, etc., to achieve bright intense blues, pale light blues, warm green-blues, smoky grayish blues, dark blackish blues, etc.).
Important note: The point here is not merely to create a colorized copy of the original but to interpret it through the medium of color. Make the drawing something that is wholly your own by selecting, omitting, exaggerating, distorting, simplifying, etc. Above all else, use your color to create a dimension of meaning that is not evident in the original image.
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