Online Class: Tools & Techniques for Tonal Drawing

Inspired by the subtle yet dramatic tonal blends found in Georgia O’Keeffe’s art, this beginning-to-intermediate-level class will help build the essential skills needed to create tonal drawings with soft gradients and strong value contrasts using graphite pencils and charcoal. 

The lesson will begin with a live demonstration by teaching artist Sudeshna Sengupta that shows how to build a value scale using various drawing tools and techniques. While learning to develop graduated blends of tonal values in this exercise, participants will also learn the compositional principles of gradation, which will be used to create spatial depth and dimension within the pictorial space.

Supplies needed for this class: 

• Strathmore 400 series Mixed-media drawing pad or Strathmore 400 series Hot-Press or pad/block or Canson XL 140 lbs Cold Press Watercolor pad, or Bristol pad or Mixed-media drawing pad or any other brand of drawing pad in any size between 9” x 12” and 12” x 17”. Thicker paper (140 lb or higher) is better.
• A set of 2B, 4B, & 6B graphite pencils
• White plastic eraser
• Charcoal Pencils, or Conté à Paris Pierre Noire Pencils, or Carbon Sketch Pencils in: Medium (2B) and Soft/Dark (4B or 6B)
• Nitram brand or other brand of Vine charcoal or Willow charcoal sticks, 1 to 3
  • Optional: Compressed charcoal stick or black conté stick
• Blending stumps (AKA Tortillons, often comes with drawing pencil sets) and or Q-tips and tissues or cotton rags (clean pieces of old t-shirts work well).
• Masking tape
  • Optional: baby wipes and hand-cream or coconut oil for wiping off hands after handling charcoal sticks, if needed.
• A pair of scissors or an X-acto knife
• A 12“ ruler if available
  • Optional: Tombow Brush pen (black), Sharpie, or Sakura Micron or other brands of waterproof ink pens; Watercolor round brushes, container of water, and water soluble graphite pencils, color pencils or color Conté crayons if anyone wants to add a hint of color.

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This class is suitable for youth ages 12 and up. Children are welcome to participate alongside their adults.

This program will take place via the video conferencing app – ZOOM. Details for accessing the Zoom meeting will be with your receipt upon registering and again sent via email the day prior. Please register in advance in order to access the program.

Note that all program times are in Mountain Time.

About the Instructor:

Sudeshna Sengupta’s career as a teaching artist spans multiple decades, continents, and cultures that inform her pedagogy for decolonizing studio art. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1985 from Visva-Bharati University, founded by the first non-European Nobel Laureate (1913) and humanist poet Rabindranath Tagore.

After teaching art and design at the college level in New Delhi, Seattle, and California, she taught at New Mexico State University-Alamogordo, where she established its first intaglio printmaking studio in 1995. Besides the O’Keeffe Museum, Sengupta teaches credit courses with the School of Art & Design of the Santa Fe Community College.

Her etchings and lithographs from the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi have been featured in a landmark exhibition on Women Printmakers of India at the NGMA-New Delhi in India. Her work is in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Association Musée d’Art Contemporain, France; Kala Institute, Berkeley, and more.

Sengupta also conducts workshops, short courses, lectures, and community-based art events focusing on multicultural and intercultural experiences that emphasize human, cultural, and environmental connectedness through creativity.

To learn more, please visit notes-and-doodles.com and visit her Instagram @santafe_online_art_studio

Registration

This class is being offered on a sliding scale. Your class fee helps to sustain the variable costs associated with hosting this program. We appreciate your support.

$15 minimal fee.

$25 covers the cost of the class.

$40 covers the cost of the class, plus a contribution to support educational programs.