Curls of my dreams - using paper curls to inspire student art - Brief Article

Toward the beginning of each school year, I review basics that my drawing class may have forgotten over the summer, making sure everyone's mind is refreshed, and that we all understand the concepts that make drawings believable and compositionally interesting.

We review contour, continuous line, sketches and thumbnail sketches. These thumbnail sketches provide us with small rectangles--both horizontal and vertical--in which to "compose" the space for our work.

We review how to render an object, talk about lighting and its effect on what it hits, and how invaluable it is for the artist. We review how an object reacts to light, not forgetting the power of "reflected" light and cast shadow--those shapes that suggest their origin, but do so much to indicate three-dimensionality.

We create a value scale with pencil, from very dark to the bright white of the paper, with the myriad shades in between. We are ready!

I'm always looking for something that will trigger my interest and that I can then make interesting for my students. I dislike repeating assignments, and rarely do. I may do a self-portrait in every drawing class, but it's never handled the same way. I always look for a different twist.

This led me to ribbons. They're lovely and the curvilinear lines are fluid and beautiful. I've used ribbons with my watercolor students and have had great results, but I wanted to try something even more unusual.

I experimented with torn paper. Heavier paper gave a soft deckle-like edge, but couldn't be controlled to make uniform widths. Newsprint tears easily, but didn't have enough body to stand up. Finally, I found a thinner watercolor paper that would tear, and stand up in a curling fashion.

The stage was set with several curls--all white, some on their side, Some interacting with other loops, some on the outskirts of the composition. A direct light source made dramatic shadows and filtered through the paper, giving ambitious students something to sink their artistic teeth into.

This was a difficult assignment. The kids--despite not being totally sold on the idea of paper curls--did their best. I gave them a choice of three techniques on two different surfaces of paper. One choice of paper was slate gray; the other two techniques were on a white sulfite.

Those who chose the gray paper used charcoal pencil, and when ready to call the work complete, used soft white pastel for "punch." The students who chose the white paper surface could either render their work in graphite, using their array of pencils, or use a "chiaroscuro" technique. Chiaroscuro is an Italian term meaning light and shade.

Several students chose the pencil rendering because they were familiar with the shading technique and knew how to employ a variety of values. But, oddly enough, I believe this was the most difficult choice. The shading had to be so subtle because the paper curls were white on white paper.

Those students who chose the chiaroscuro technique used the art of Rembrandt, LaTour and Caravaggio, whose works appear to emerge from the shadows, as examples. Students were instructed to shade the surface of the white paper with vine charcoal, then erase out the highlights, eventually adding some darker, richer areas where the paper curled away from the light or was interrupted by other curls.

We spent a lot of time examining the shadows--how dark they were closest to the curls, and how the shadows change value and shape as they get farther from their source.

The resulting drawings are lyrical; some are potent in their dramatic values, others subtly inferred. These drawings are lovely compositions that loop, twirl and twist through light and shadow; they're the curls of which dreams are made.

Geri Greenman is head of the art department at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Ill., and is a Contributing Editor for Arts & Activities. Photographs by student Rebecca Johnson.

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group