I admire the smooth value tones acquired with photoshop, but I chose to use charcoal pencil on smooth newsprint for this assignment b/c I work with this medium a lot. Consequently it took a long while, and though accuracy wasn't important I tried to maintain some. It challenged me very much to try and keep the 5 values consistent & even. Because the paper value is dark my #2 barely shows. I was tempted to darken all the values accordingly but didn't. I especially struggled with translating & assigning values #3, #4, and #5 in the dark section of the image on the left. All of that said, I learned a lot from this study. (I can't identify the charcoal pencil b/c it was worn down to the nub, and I didn't have another like it in my supply kit.) Comments appreciated and thanks for those of you who give feedback.

I worked this up a little more than necessary because I think it gives a pleasing effect. I would have gone darker with the values if I had used another medium. But that would be a lot more "pencil mileage" here.

Here's my value gradient and value scale assignment. Fabriano paper, 2B & 2H pencils. I found the values 3, 4, & 5 the most challenging to discern, overall. I adjusted the image by de-saturating it in photoshop. I'm enjoying all these exercises.

I did the simple ao assignment in graphite, on computer-print out paper. I assumed there was a lot of ambient light, thereby making the shading and shadow very subtle. I actually broadened the occlusion shadow in this, my 2nd version. (I didn't spread the shadow beyond the circumference of the objects in my first draft). The paper got a bit crinkly when I did this. I had trouble imagining a shadow around the base of the cube, considering light would be flowing all around the object and it was flush with the surface plane.

It took me a while to get to this exercise so I did a couple of extra views. I thought the airplane would be fun to do, but the top view became more of a rendering exercise because of its flat silhouette. Anyway - it was tempting to add half tone to the plane sketches to bring out some form, but I pulled back (even erased) in hopes of concentrating on AO.

I did the assignment quick enough, but delayed in posting them.

I did the exercise in photoshop with a mouse, not a stylus. I found the lesson more challenging than I thought it would be, due to the complex shape of the monkey’s head and so I spent a lot of time with it. I made several changes as I went through it. In particular, I kept changing the shadow under the monkey’s brow, —from form shadow initially, to cast shadow, but settled on dark halftone; the reason being it was in the light family. Another thought was whether to include the ear on the right as a form shadow or cast shadow, or both.  I also had some thinking to do about the center light.  Because of the modeled surface there were some parts that seemed to be receiving center light, like the monkey’s eye on the right, even though it was surrounded by half-tone. And I wasn’t sure how broad to define the ambient occlusion. So I would really appreciate some feedback on this assignment.