Aspen Stems__sketch, trees, lesson,

Aspen Stems__#22 from my Colorado sketchbook__auction REAL soon

The thing about sketching is VALUES. It's a "art term" meaning "lights and darks". This sketch has light values, whereas yesterday's sketch has middle to dark values. Another way to describe this is that it is "high key"...the values being high key mean that the painting or drawing has a lot of light...low key means it has a lot of darks...Even though this one is high key, the sketch has enough darks to hold it together.
I learned something on this one...not sure I can describe it, but these trees were backlit, and I wanted to create that impression...One way would have been to make the background very dark so the leaves would appear lighter...but keeping it high key almost makes me squint at the brightness of all the white paper...so I left it this way, and I think it looks backlit, anyway!


Sketching workshop, Rockport, TX, coming this fall. Let me know if you are interested!vvaughan8@yahoo.com