Hey, all, I'm taking a basic drawing class this semester just to learn a bit more about the art. What we need for Thursday is an interesting bit of black and white photography that includes a good range of shades, including the extremes of pure black and pure white. The idea is to use it to practice our shading techniques. I'm prett sure my printer can handle anything I get off-line, so I'd love to hear about/see any suggestions people would have to use for this. Remember, though, I'm going to have to end up drawing part of it in the end! Thanks, Malenchite

Go find a petunia patch. Take three different angles, Then three different distances. Say 24", 18" and 12" . Let the leaves go very dark and the flowers very light. About 9 images and with your eye being good a composition you should have at least one that qualifies as a subject print.

take some Ilford HP 400ASA film, and shoot the world. You'll get all the shades you want naturally.

That's not difficult to draw!!! Wow. Seems like a charcoal thing to me! Ant pretty hard. Bsteph

What I can suggest is for you to try and practice attaining different tonal values and gradations by shading WITHOUT smudging. This way you can learn how to control your grip, pressure and strokes. Hope this helps :-) Good luck!