"Arlie" in high key

[Mike McCarty]

I did this drawing a year or so ago. I read in another thread that what I have done is create a "high key" drawing. For contrast I used a black pastel chalk to create the "low key" value of the coat.

Feel free to make any comments. I should note that any improvements you may suggest will have to be applied to future work. This piece is no longer available for change.

[Jean Kelly]

Mike, this is a wonderful way to depict an elderly woman. Soft, but she has a lot of "presence". My only thought on this is the line quality all along the left side of the face and nose. I believe this could be made stronger by varying it more, and losing the line in places. My art prof would often comment on the "beautiful disappearing line". I'll try to find an example to refer you to. (My study of artist's and their techniques is really rusty). Maybe someone else can pull one up quickly.

Jean

[Steven Sweeney]

Mike,

"Key" is akin to the key signature in a musical piece. Unless you're arranging a la Barry Manilow, the piece is defined by that key throughout. Think of "key" as bracketing a few contiguous values on the scale. Slide the bracket down (to fill with a darker set of values), you have a relatively lower key. Move the whole bracket to the light end, you've have a high-keyed drawing, in which darks will appear only as accents rather than value shapes.

(A side note: Masterful execution of dark accents [redundant, since "accents" are by defintion dark, but I want to be clear] in an otherwise high-key drawing is stunningly effective. A single narrow crescent or triangle of dark, placed precisely to suggest form, can win friends and influence people.)

Do what you've done -- split the bracket and send half to each end of the value scale -- and you simply have bi-polar, and there's little in my current prescriptions that can help with that (unless I mix them, and we've all seen what happens when I do that). Even Manilow would have kept the now-two different keys closer together. The hazard in the split is that the dark's weight, without intermediate values, can make the lighter passages appear unfinished. (And you might be surprised to discover how much lighter in value that coat could be drawn and still "read" as a (relatively) very dark object.)

Anyway, to Jean's point about the contour outline, I agree but that simply reflects the "single school" training I've had. I realize that others in fact favor the "outline", even when they're drawing in paint. In an extremely high-key drawing, where much of the surface remains white, there's of course not much you can do but indicate various edges and shapes by outlines, but even then you don't want to be heavy-handed about it. And when you've got a value shape coming up to that edge, it can be interesting to downplay the line so that it is the same value as the shape it is containing. (Said another way, your outlines are -- without a reason "in nature" -- darker than the value shapes immediately adjacent to them.) Easing that line value toward the value of the adjacent form, even just here and there, will have the salutary effect of adding interesting variety to that overall contour line.

[Mike McCarty]

Jean and Steven,

The hazard in the split is that the dark's weight, without intermediate values, can make the lighter passages appear unfinished.

I don't remember precisely what was going on in my mind at the time I drew Arlie (man). My guess would be that a couple of years ago I didn't have the commitment to the degree of completion that I have today. It may have also been an attempt to gain some sort of perceived dramatic effect.

I don't mind using it as an example to learn from. I would hope to do a better job today.

[Jean Kelly]

Mike I really thought this was an elderly woman in a fur coat. I even saw an earring in his ear! Oh well, as we get older does our sex become ambiguous?

Jean

[Steven Sweeney]

Yes and no, Jean.

Mike, just to clarify, I don't regard the lighter portion of the drawing to be unfinished. It's a perfectly fine "high key" rendering.

[Lon Haverly]

Mike, great perspective on this subject, and I agree, it would have been even better if you had varied the "outline" of the face losing the line sometimes, and darkening it at other places.