Name____________________________

Class Period_______________________

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Value Packet

Table of Contents/ Checklist

Due Date Points Comments

Vocabulary/ Notes Sheet _________ _________ _______________

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Art Article and Questions _________ _________ _______________

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Technique Exercises----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shading a Sphere _________ _________ _______________

Drawing _______________

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Art Project----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rubric and Assignment _________ _________ _______________

Details _______________

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Gourd Life Drawings _________ _________ _______________

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Early Finishers Worksheet _________ _________ _______________

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Value Vocabulary (Notes) Shading: Value: Range of Value: Value Scale: Shade: Tint:

Tone: Contrast: High Contrast: Low Contrast: Highlight: Cast Shadow:

Directions:

Read the following article and answer the questions that follow. Feel free to

use a highlighter or pencil to underline facts that you may feel are important.

What Adams Saw Through His Lens

Courtesy of the Cedric Wright Family

Ansel Adams, photographing in Yosemite National Park from atop his car in about 1942. Many come to the park to

try to take the same photos he did.

By LOUISE STORY

Published: April 27, 2008

WAWONA TUNNEL is a passageway from civilization to natural splendor. The

tunnel, dug through a hill on the western end of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite

National Park in the 1930s, hides the coming view like a mile-long blindfold.

And then you’re there. Pale, curvaceous granite rocks dance in the skyline. Dozens of

people stand along the edge of the pull-off, called Tunnel View, trying to capture the

scene. Some snap two quick shots with disposable yellow cameras, and others set up

their tripods for hours, watching the light strike Yosemite’s monoliths. On the left, El

Capitan, a rock climbers’ mecca, appears the tallest. The Half Dome and Sentinel

Dome arch upwards in the center. And the two Cathedral Spires sit on the right next

to the sometimes gushing Bridalveil Fall.

Many people know these sights by name, but more know them by sight alone, as

captured through the lens of the legendary American photographer Ansel Adams.

Adams first visited Yosemite in 1916 when he was 14 years old. On that trip, he

hopped up on a tree stump to take a photo of Half Dome, then stumbled, headfirst,

and accidentally pushed the shutter release. The upside-down image remained one of

Adams’s favorites, he wrote in his autobiography.

The park itself also remained a favorite. Adams ended up living much of his life in

Yosemite, and took many of his most well-known photographs there. Today, it is not

unusual to encounter professional photographers and novices alike trying to retrace

his path. They wait for the perfect minute of moonrise over Half Dome or a shadow

on a fallen tree in Siesta Lake. They remember his photo of a juniper tree they saw in

a museum, on a coffee cup or a monthly calendar. Ansel Adams’s work, in some

ways, is the best unpaid advertising a national park could get.

The first step on an Ansel Adams-inspired trip to Yosemite is to visit the gallery run

by his family. It is in the park’s central area called Yosemite Valley, and displays and

sells Adams’s work as well as photos taken by several contemporary artists. Before

Adams died in 1984, he spent years living in a house behind the gallery and leading

workshops there. Now others teach the workshops, and the gallery is managed by

Adams’s grandchildren. The gallery’s staff leads free camera walks three days a week.

The gallery also shows a free film about Adams once a week, rents out cameras and

tripods and sells keepsakes and guidebooks.

I ordered three books written by Adams from the gallery’s Web site before my trip:

Adams’s autobiography, his collected photos of Yosemite and a step-by-step

explanation of some of his works called “Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs.”

By the time our plane landed in Fresno, Calif., I felt well-equipped to step inside

Ansel land.

But Yosemite does not often appear as it did at the moments Adams tripped his

shutter. Nor is it easy to stand where he stood and capture the same images.

“I’ve had people say they are kind of disappointed,” says Glenn Crosby, the curator of

the Ansel Adams Gallery. “They only know the park through Ansel’s eyes, and he was

only showing you the keepers. The park is not always as dramatic as his work.”

Back in 1986, Mr. Crosby was working at a job he didn’t like with too long a

commute. So he moved to Yosemite to take photographs for a year and has stayed

there ever since. He likes to say he has his own “Moonrise and Half Dome” because

in 1998 he photographed the rock with an astronomer who had tracked the exact

minute the moon would ascend next to Half Dome in the same way it did in front of

Adams in 1960. But as talented as Mr. Crosby is, he says he doesn’t fool himself.

“Someone could be standing shoulder to shoulder with Ansel and come away with a

totally different interpretation,” he says.

Once a week, Mr. Crosby takes a handful of people into a backroom at the gallery for

a free show of original Adams photos (hint: pre-register). Recently, Mr. Crosby

showed visitors Adams’s 1927 photo called “The Diving Board” (which includes

Adams’s future wife, Virginia Best, standing on a distant rock) and his 1921 picture

“Lodgepole Pines, Lyell Fork of the Merced River,” among others. He handles the

photos carefully with white-gloved hands, since the prices for rare prints are as high

as $40,000.

“We’re a gallery,” Mr. Crosby says. “We’re not a museum.”

The gallery has been in the family since 1902, when James Best, a local painter, won

the rights to sell his work there. Ansel Adams married Virginia Best, James’s

daughter, in 1928, and the family still holds the concession license. In the 1970s,

Ansel’s son, Michael, renamed the gallery after his father.

Ansel Adams’s family members today say they feel a responsibility to provide

education and service.

“We offer a connection to Ansel for people who love Ansel and this park,” says

Matthew Adams, president of the gallery and grandson of the photographer.

By the 1950s, Adams had already taken most of his famous Yosemite images. Not

unlike tourists today who visit his tripod points, Adams packed up his two teenage

children, wife and a couple of burros in 1952 to recreate some of his earlier treks. For

10 days, they hikedthrough the backcountry of Yosemite, past Merced Lake, Vernal

Fall and the peak that would be named Mount Ansel Adams in 1985. It had been

decades since Ansel had been to some of those spots, but without hesitation he

scrambled up on ledges and visualized new images, recalls his son, Michael Adams,

who was 19 at the time.

“He loved the scenery as it was at the time,” says Michael Adams. “Whether it was

dead trees or trees that were alive. Or whether the waterfall was full or down. It

wasn’t always the big vistas, it could be a wonderful rock.”

Visitors to Yosemite should come with the same openness to appreciating the

scenery as it is, rather than expecting to see the living version of Ansel Adams’s

pictures. The Jeffrey pine that Adams photographed atop Sentinel Dome in 1940, for

example, fell a few years ago, and it is now a rotting log.

Adams was often frustrated with the development of the park during his long life

there. When he was young, he felt as if seeing others in the wilderness was “an

intrusion or even trespass” and wrote many letters to the national park service

bemoaning the commercialization of Yosemite.

But he outgrew the desire for privacy in the park. “Nature is always better when left

to itself — but for what purpose?” he wrote. “Starry-eyed reaction to the splendors of

nature is an invaluable experience for everyone.”

Directions:

Answer the questions below by using the article “What Adams Saw Through His Lens”. Make sure to answer each question completely.

What country was Ansel Adams from? What was one of Ansel Adams favorite photographs that he took? How old was Ansel Adams when he took that favorite photo? Where did Ansel Adams live a large portion of his life? The article states, “...in some ways, is the best unpaid advertising a national park could get.” Why do you think this may be true? In what year did Ansel Adams die? Why were many people disappointed when they visited the national parks in Ansel Adams photographs? What was Ansel Adam’s wife’s name? How much money could you buy a rare Ansel Adams print for? What is the difference between a gallery and a museum? When Ansel grew older did he still feel frustrated that Yosemite was not private enough?

Shading a Sphere

Directions: Use the images from the last page to draw and shade a sphere using all the

appropriate values below. Like the image on the bottom of the last page, make sure your

sphere has a table to sit on.

Still Life Gourd Examples

Assessment Rubric

Student Name: Class Period:

Assignment: Observational Drawing W/ Gourds and Pumpkins Date Completed:

Circle the number in pencil that best shows how well you feel that you completed that criterion for the assignment.

Excellent Good Average Needs Improvement

Rate Yourself

Drawing

Teacher’s Rating

Drawing

Rate Yourself

Shaded

Teacher’s Rating

Shaded

Criteria 1 – lines show contour and at the least, an attempt toward realism / natural

10 9 – 8 7 6 or less

Criteria 2 – Shading and/or coloring shows a difference in value and adds to completed drawing

10 9 – 8 7 6 or less

Criteria 3 – gourds are composed together and not “floating” around the paper hap-hazardly

10 9 – 8 7 6 or less

Criteria 4 – Effort: took time to develop idea & complete project? (Didn’t rush.) Good use of class time?

10 9 – 8 7 6 or less

Criteria 5 – Craftsmanship – Neat, clean & complete? Skillful use of the art tools & media?

10 9 – 8 7 6 or less

Total: 50 x 2 = 100 (possible points)

Grade:

Your Total

Teacher Total

Your Total

Teacher Total

Student Comments: