As part of the final for my composition class, we were asked to create a piece incorporating the elements and principles of design we learned in class.  We could create the composition in the medium that we normally worked in.  Since the class was tailored for illustrators and graphic designers most of the class will be preparing their finals using digital media.  There are a few of us artists that will work in our medium (i.e., textiles).  I prepared my first piece (see the previous post three weeks ago) and brought it to the instructor for comments.  He said there was not enough value differentiation.  I agreed with him and I remember when I was selecting colors I found it easy to shy away from the very light and very dark values.  I wanted to play it safe.  So back to the drawing table! 

For the first time I paid strict attention to the value of the different shapes and also to their placement is the fore, middle and back grounds.  I also paid more attention to creating figures with the different colors.  For my first effort I unfortunately slipped back into the dead earth pallette color zone and the piece was so dull.  However, because I did pay attention to the values I was able to successfully create depth in the piece.  (Yea!)  Now, armed with the visual for the creation of depth, I set out to use better colors.  This was not easy!  When using the earth pallette there are no saturated colors that mess with your mind so it is much easier to see value.  When I went to the brighter pallette I had a very difficult time seeing value because there are so many colors that are highly saturated and these bright colors occupy the mid range of values.  Three pieces later I was finally able to put together a pallette that was energetic (my original goal) and also has a good amount of depth.  I never thought I was going to get here.  But here it is: