Value Grid Lesson
Do your students need a little work with value before they embark on a shaded drawing? Value Grids are an effective tool to give them some practice.
- Introduce or review value/shading. Perhaps make value scales. Establish that shading can be blended and smooth, textured, or hatched (or cross-hatched).
- Have 12” square paper prepared. Have students measure and make a 2” grid. Lightly draw the grid.
- Name/ID goes in the upper left square. Students choose two 4 letter words. One goes across, one goes down. They have to be “G” rated. The last square is blank.
- Introduce or review composition, and dynamic balance.
- Use the letter shapes to fill in the grid. Each square should be a good composition and the whole grid should be a good composition. For this reason shapes should be closed, with no lines that do not make part of a shape.
- Use all the values to shade the shapes. Create a balance of light and dark, smooth and textured-or whatever parameters you need to use.
- View the finished drawings with only the shaded grid showing.
TIPS:
- Words with letters that have rounded shapes work better than words with letters that have all straight lines. For example, WORD will work better than TELL.
- Using all capital letters works best.
- Having pencils with a variety of soft and hard leads makes it easier, but it can be done with just #2 pencils.
- Resources: Rose, Ted. Discovering Drawing. Davis Publications. pp. 34-35.
- New Art Basics: VT2 Design Grid
http://www.nabdb.design.iastate.edu/showstrat.php?SID=VT-2A - This lesson will work with upper elementary through high school. It can also be adapted to teach color blending.
- http://www.scrabble.org.au/words/fours.htm A scrabble vocabulary site for four letter words.
Lesson by Chris Noel, Newton, IA