Course Highlights


Contrast

High contrast of tones, regardless of color help to create a more dramatic piece. To achieve high contrast, think of your basic value scale from white to black. This scale is made up of many different tones. To achieve high contrast in your drawing, you will need to skip one or two values between each tone used. You may decide to use predominantly dark tones, adding white or very light grays for highlights and vice versa. The image below  is demonstrative of high contrast sketching.



Alternatively, low contrast is effective for creating subtle atmospheres that are tranquil or sullen for instance. In this case, a narrow range of tones is incorporated, using tones from the value chart that are adjacent to one another, avoiding the extremes of white and black. Your highlighted areas would be pale gray, while the deepest shadows would be only a medium dark gray. The image below is demonstrative of low contrast sketching.

Full contrast refers to the use of all ranges in the value scale. I.e. some white, some grays and some black. On the flip side, close tones refers to a drawing that is rendered in just two or three adjacent tones on the value scale.

High key is the term to describe drawings that contain only those tones in the white through to medium gray range of the scale, while low key describes drawings that contain only those tones in the medium gray to black range of the scale.

Temperature contrast is often used to create atmosphere. For instance, colors that are predominantly warm, such as orange, yellow and red will express emotions like joy, energy and passion. More subdued, cool colors like blues and grays will express calm and tranquility or perhaps sadness and despair.

The ¨feeling¨ or atmosphere of a piece is largely determined by the intensity, contrast and intonation of colors along with setting and subject matter. Atmosphere contributes tremendously to the reactions of viewers and should be well-planned when determining composition.

Other pages of interest

Expressive sketching
Contour lines
Drawing reflections
Creating depth
Contrast

 

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