LINE AS VALUE

The Design class assignment read: "Explore the use of line to create value. Crosshatching, stippling, and invented patterns will be used to create volume in a drawing from a provided black and white photograph."  The provided photo was a slightly cropped head-on portrait of an elephant.  I used a lightbox to rough trace the outline of the image.  As I used lines to denote areas of shading, I was reminded of a topographical map.  I decided to use a topo map as a template. Darker shaded areas in the original photo would be recreated in my illustration as tight contour lines which in topo maps denote steep altitude gains; lighter areas in the photo would be recreated as flat valleys or gentle altitude slopes.  I decided to name the geographical landmarks after African animals, and inked those names directly onto the drawing.

I showed my work-in-progress to the instructor.  Although the assignment called for a black and white drawing, she gave me permission to add coloring to emphasize the topo map idea.  I scanned my ink drawing into photoshop, and, using layers, added washes of yellow, green, blue and brown to illustrate land, sand, vegetation, and water.

The idea took me back to a map I created more than 50 years ago with my father for an elementary school assignment.  I don’t know what happened to the original ‘Bird Island,” but I vividly remembered how it looked and the names we gave to the geographic formations: ‘Ibis Isthmus,” “Pelican Peninsula,” etc.  I’m thinking of doing series of these topo maps, and may very well return to Bird Island.