Using Light & Shade effectively in your paintings

USING LIGHT AND SHADE EFFECTIVELY IN YOUR PAINTINGS

As you practice drawing, you will be creating studies with value, light and shade achromatically and effectively measuring relative values and creating value patterns that will work with your overall compositional plans. You will create shadows for various basic shapes.

Whether you use acrylic, watercolours, mixed media or oil paints to create your paintings, portraying the light in a painting (whether in a realistic way or in an abstract image) can be tricky unless you have studied it extensively in achromatic media. Of course, we can’t actually paint light – but we can paint the effects of a light source. Light in a painting is a crucial part of any work of art that aims to reveal life, feelings, form and actually value contrast is one of the most commonly employed phenomena to bring attention to a focal point.

“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.”

Pablo Picasso

We will be exploring how to first understand how light - and subsequently shadow - interacts with a subject. To translate and incorporate these studies into a well-executed painting, we use highlights to portray the areas where light hits an object, and relatively darker hues are used to illustrate the contrasting shadows. We also play with value patterns and colour temperature to enhance this effect and we need to be able to use colour (hue), saturation and value simultaneously and knowledgeably.

1. UNDERSTAND HOW LIGHT BEHAVES

One of the challenges in depicting light and shade comes about if there are multiple light sources.

If you’re trying to sketch and paint a still life for example, where you have light coming from more than one direction ie. windows, ceiling lights and other lamps – it can become difficult to achieve a realistic, three-dimensional picture. In this instance, the effect of the light source is confused and less defined and a good shadow to work with may not even be clearly visible.

The simplest way to learn to paint form and shadow is to have one strong source of light shine onto the object or main focal point . Any shadows will be more clearly defined, and it can more easily be translated into realistic paintings. Generally, a strong direct light will create shadows with sharp, crisp edges, whilst a softer light will of course produce shadows with somewhat blurred edges.

2. SKETCH IN THE MAIN SHAPES AND DEFINE LIGHT SOURCE CONSISTENTLY

Now that the principal shapes and light source are defined, you can continue sketching and blocking in the surrounding elements. Avoid detail at this stage and make a thumbnail notan (you will learn how in the workbook section). Even in an abstract artwork, this stage is vital in setting up a strong composition.

USING LIGHT AND SHADE EFFECTiVELY IN YOUR PAINTINGS

3. CHOOSE YOUR HARMONIOUS SCHEME

As we touched on previously, getting all of the dimensions of colour (hue, value and saturation) harmoniously planned and carefully mixed, really helps get off on the right foot, when painting, in particular with light and shade. Developing these skills diligently will pay off long-term.

4. CHOOSING HUES FOR YOUR SHADOWS

Some beginners may think that black is the colour of choice for depicting all shadows, however, this isn’t the best case, unless the image is achromatic. Often, a neutralized complementary colour to the object’s colour will depict the most pleasing shadow. Some artists use a violet, a blue-violet or blue for every shadow in every painting. The cool colours are most suited for use in shadows, however, the temperature is a relative thing, so even just a ‘cooled version’ of a warm hue (on the surface where a shadow is cast) can be very effective. Form shadows are more often made this way (cooling/ darkening the local colour.)

In a coloured image, if black is what you want to use in shadow(s), use a ‘chromatic black or grey’, ie. one that is made from two complementary hues from the overall harmonious scheme.

5. CHOOSING HUES FOR YOUR HIGHLIGHTS

When creating highlights on the subject(s) of your painting, many people would assume that just adding white would be the go-to method of showing this. Also, not always the case. eg. a red object highlight made from red mixed with white can turn pink and pasty, whereas a touch of yellow can brighten and lighten a red area without this issue. How you apply the highlight and which medium you are using will affect how it ends up looking as well.

The reflected light is also great fun to play with and often does involve adding white to the colour of the object or a tint of the reflective surface (which can be real or imagined).

VALUE CONTRAST

There is a lot more about this subject within the Composition and Design Module , suffice it to say that the principle of emphasis (or contrast) in visual compositions or designs gets a huge leg up from the clever juxtaposition of lights against darks in strategic positions

This selfie by a young Rembrandt van Rijn, created around c.1630, shows us exactly where to look with the value contrast on his face.