Light and shadow in painting
What is the direction of light in an artwork? Do you pay attention to it when you are drawing and painting? What are shadows in a drawing or painting? Do you know how they relate to the source of light? These are simple things, but pretending they do not exist or forgetting about them makes your drawing and painting flat and unconvincing.
Direction of light
For me personally, light must come from the left or from the left and from behind. That is when values and shadows in my paintings work well, and I intentionally and sometimes subconsciously would choose only such views and subjects. Why? When you know where the shadow falls and how to create it, you can use memory and imagination for that. If you struggle with shadows, most likely they are not cast from the correct side.
Creating art from photo
If you are creating your drawings or paintings from photos, you should know that there is no clear source of light or it comes from the right side very frequently. The direction of light can be also hard to detect on a photo. If your brain does not feel the same way about the source of light as it is on the photo, you will be struggling with every shadow and every detail you include in your composition.
Adjust the subject, not your perception
Generally, light and shadow is an important feature of any drawing and painting. Experienced artists use it automatically and they create set-ups or paint views where the light direction matches their visual perception. If you are just starting out, pay attention to the point where light comes from, its source. Outdoors, it is often the sunlight, but we do not normally paint the sun, we just indicate this area with color.
Sketch and quick watercolor for shadow testing
I usually create a rough drawing to use as a reference.
Watercolor and sketch are the easiest ways to test your perception of light and its representation in an artwork. It is much faster than doing the same in pastel, acrylic or oil, especially if you are a beginner and you have to learn everything: composition, values, contrast, perspective and color mixing, as well as brush stroke. Adding visible areas of different values helps. Most people, who draw and paint frequently, assume it an organically critical and absolutely necessary aspect of painting.
Spring walks in the village, is a large painting, 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm, and so was its sketch, the other is Spring barn, also 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm
Black ink pen for sketching out your subject.
Spring colors, cheerful and lovely, yet simple
In order to check your values, you can turn paing image into black and white.
All of these paintings make use of perspective: linear and atmospheric. Therefore, direction of light becomes very important.
Art classes: Art classes
Enjoy!