An Early Start To Week 5

I've uploaded the last couple of ink washes along with the blog articles and that really wraps up this week's work.

Week 5 is titled "Using Light to Add Dimension to Botanical Illustrations". There are a lot of exercises! In fact, there are so many that I will wait to describe as I work through each. For now, I'll just list some basic principles we'll be working with this upcoming week.

The four main categories of light:

• Highlights
• Form Shadows
• Reflected Light
• Cast Shadows

Light Sources:

• Overhead
• Direct
• Oblique
• Low Side
• Backlit
• Overcast

This week's required reading is once again Chapter 4: Ink Wash from Beautiful Botanicals. Optional reading is Chapter 10 of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and chapters 3 and 4 from The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature.

Our instructor, Marcia, has called upon four of us to provide student input that could become a component of a Cornell presentation, "Facilitating Online Learning: An Introduction to Tools and Methods." Sounds interesting and fun. More on this as it develops.

Dutch Masters: The Age of Rembrandt came in today. The little Sony DVD player sits well on my elliptical trainer so I'll be getting in some entertaining exercise. :-)