In the Part two of the Foundation course we are covering Tone. It says that when done well, it gives the illusion of solidity to the forms as well as adding an illusion of depth to the paper/canvas.
I say tone was the first thing I noticed I rely heavily on while drawing. Lines were always unforgiving to me, but with tone I could always play more and with less pressure. I find it you can describe an object in so many more ways tonally.
In the first exercise we're directed to do three different tonal variation using short repetitive movements of a single medium, and use only different pressure to achieve the gradation. I used a black conté stick as I find its darkest value quite rich.
Overall, the marks are consistent on all three, but in the darkest tone they're more varied in shape as my conté stick started breaking from the pressure.
The mid-tone on sheet has the most shape consistency, while the lightest one shows how reluctant I was to press harder and my marks are not exactly uniform.
Just to answer the lesson's questions here: there are more strokes than white space on my sheets, and there is a clear difference in tone, although the light one could be lighter.