{"id":2185,"date":"2016-08-11T16:20:47","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T16:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/?p=2185"},"modified":"2016-08-11T16:20:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T16:20:47","slug":"small-in-size-big-in-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/small-in-size-big-in-value\/","title":{"rendered":"Small in Size, Big in Value"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every July I go to our neighboring town’s library book sale, and even though I try not to go overboard, you can be sure I never come away empty-handed. This year I hit a minor jackpot and found two valuable books on sketching. I had never heard of Dale Meyers<\/a> before snagging her\u00a0book The Sketchbook<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0but with a bit of web research I have since learned that she was a well-respected teacher at the Art Students League of New York and had a solid reputation for her watercolor work. As one reviewer says about the book, its “a little dated (but) still rich in knowledge and technique”.<\/p>\n

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This and the other little thumbnails below measure about 2″ square…they’re tiny, but they pack a lot of information.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the third chapter, The Sketchbook as a Manual<\/em>, she talks about the importance of value study and how helpful it can be, before beginning a larger finished piece, to create\u00a0a quick and tiny 3-value diagram\u00a0that distills the subject into the simplest of geometric shapes. \u00a0By addressing not just the values, but also composition, one can\u00a0solidify the basics of an image\u00a0before committing too much time and paper to an idea that isn’t going to fly. There is also\u00a0the added advantage that\u00a0creating\u00a0these little thumbnails regularly makes it easier to think in terms of value when working with color.<\/p>\n

\"Thumbnails3.0\"<\/p>\n

I like that this approach adds another layer of\u00a0discovery that is one step beyond the simple viewfinder (written about in this post)<\/a>\u00a0I use to\u00a0organize an image. Undertaken\u00a0purely as practice, not solely\u00a0as a preliminary to bigger work, it’s a way to\u00a0effectively keep the wheels greased and efficiently gobble random waiting-time, wherever and whenever.<\/p>\n

\"Thumbnails1.5\"<\/p>\n

I have several softcover 3.5″ x 5.5″ Moleskine sketchbooks tucked into various pockets: in my purse, in my car, and even in the front of my life jacket for when\u00a0kayaking. Yet\u00a0they\u00a0contain a lot of\u00a0unfinished sketches because, due to the basic nature\u00a0of trying to squeeze a quick drawing in between whatever else is going on while I’m out and about, I am invariably interrupted and need\u00a0to move on\u00a0before the drawing is complete.\u00a0But, with\u00a0Meyer’s speedy approach and 2 – 3 minutes at the most, I think just about any spare moment can become\u00a0a learning opportunity.<\/p>\n

\"Thumbnails4\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every July I go to our neighboring town’s library book sale, and even though I try not to go overboard, you can be sure I never come away empty-handed. This year I hit a minor jackpot and found two valuable books on sketching. I had never heard of Dale Meyers before snagging her\u00a0book The Sketchbook,\u00a0but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[311,312,313],"class_list":["post-2185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-dale-meyers","tag-the-sketchbook","tag-value-studies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5kO5z-zf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2185"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185\/revisions\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}