Take out - teaching art - Brief Article - Column

Arts & Activities, March, 2002 by Geri Greenman

Every year, I attempt to create new assignments in all of my classes. This is a difficult challenge, but I've never wanted my students to say to me, "Yeah, my older brother did that in your class when he took the course--hey, did you know he and his wife have five children now?"

I search for, and experiment with, different ways to get some important basic information and skills to my students. So, oftentimes, the information is the same, but I try to find new ways to say it and unique ways for the students to interpret these "sage" skills.

An important drawing skill that I address every time I teach beginning drawing is "chiaroscuro"--the Italian word meaning light (chiaro) and shade (scuro). One can see the effect of chiaroscuro in drawing dimensional space; there is a suggestion of objects emerging from the darkness, their form poking into the light.

I show my students paintings by Caravaggio, Rembrandt and even La Tour, and how skillfully these artists used shadow and illumination to create such dramatic compositions. In using the work of Caravaggio, I show how he, in his Baroque manner, used diagonals and foreshortening to bring viewers into the picture plane and engaged us visually by leading us in and around the lights and darks.

Yes, the students see this, but then they look at the subject(s) I've chosen for them, and they look at the gloriously jewel-like colors of these paintings, and then at me as if saying, "You can't be serious--those are just containers from take-out restaurants ... boring!"

This is where I try to get them to see the myriad shadows and shapes that are created by composing those Chinese-food boxes into a pleasing still life. By putting a light source near the setup, they become so much more than the mundane boxes most people see. This is where I tell them, and they experience for themselves, that when they draw any of the ordinary items, their skill makes the objects beautiful and makes them art.

I repeatedly tell my kids that we are so fortunate to have the ability to take something and make it so much more, and I think there are times when they see this happen and they believe in their power.

We experienced this beauty of taking the mundane and making it magnificent--and it was seemingly simple. I had them walk around the still life and sketch several thumbnails of the boxes. When one was chosen for its quality, the students were given gray charcoal paper.

At this point, I like to add a little "math" to the formula: some addition and subtraction. I had the students enlarge their drawing on the gray paper and then add ground charcoal, either in powdered form or by smearing vine charcoal all over to cover the surface. Then I demonstrated how to "take out" (lift off/subtract) from the value they just added using a kneaded eraser. I often had to caution students when using this technique, not to DRAW outlines using the erasing--that's missing the concept entirely. What I wanted them to see were planes and angles--forms created by the way light hit those boxes, and how we can make them appear three-dimensional on that flat sheet of paper.

After they erased the shapes of the illuminated sides of the containers, it was apparent to them how much lighter the unearthed gray paper appeared next to the charcoal treatment. Already, the boxes were emerging. The `spotlight did wonderful things to the containers, casting magnificent shadows, filtering brightly through the flimsy sides, while just a little glow occurred where the triangular flaps overlapped.

At this time, I instructed the students to add darker values with their charcoal pencils, giving punch to areas that were still too nondescript or flat. When they were done with selecting different values to indicate shadows and highlights, I made a last-minute addition: I had them add some soft white pastel for a dramatic punch of light.

These food containers are lovely in their simplicity, and monumental in their effect of showing off light and shadow. When looking at them, we just want to take in all the undulating values in our "take-out" containers.

Geri Greenman is the head of the art department at Willow-brook High School in Villa Park, Illinois, and is a Contributing Editor for Arts & Activities. Photographs by student, Elaine Jackson.