| Author | Message | ||
  Jay Unregistered guest |
Eugene, I'm certainly no expert, and not even in the ballpark compared to your skills. But I'll offer this - learned from the first advanced class I took, & touched upon briefly in another thread. Get a strongish light with a 'reflector' behind it - something you can aim, like this: http://images.acmehardware.com/200x200/5914130.jpg or one of these: wwwDOTthetattoochair.com/images/acc-lamp.jpg -- that you can aim. Point it at something like a bowl of different colored fruits, and stare 'hard' into each & every shadow. Move the light around. Slide some other color over the table (a blue or red sheet of construction paper, eg) under the bowl that'll catch the light overflow, & repeat the staring. I learned more about shadowing & reflected colors from this exercise than anything else I've ever done. Not much, but hope it's helpful. It's fun if not informative! *heh* /Jay [The 2nd URL - add http colon doubleslash prefixing & replace the word 'DOT"...board wouldn't take a 2nd link] | ||
Eugene Advanced Member Username: Eugene Post Number: 156 Registered: 8-2006 |
Thanks for your thoughts, Marie. I once took an excellent workshop with Carl Dalio, who really "pushes" color. He could throw all sorts of color into shadows. It worked for him, but I had a hard tme with it. The trick is to sneak in other colors without changing the value. I suppose it all comes with confidence and experience. | ||
Marie Advanced Member Username: Marie Post Number: 164 Registered: 8-2006 |
Welcome back! And Happy New Year! I usually think of the shadow side as being a darker version of the light side, with the addition of some of the color of the light that is being reflected back into the shadow. In other words, if no light was being reflected into the shadow, then the shadow would be completely black -- which is not what we want. So, I think of the color of the light source and the color of other objects close to the shadow. If I'm feeling particularly geeky, I actually try to figure which way the light is bouncing, much the say way one might try to calculate a billiard shot. From a practical standpoint. If I'm doing an outdoor scene, I lean toward blue/violet for parts of the shadow that I think are reflected from the sky. If I'm doing an interior scene, I try to keep the shadow side a little to the warm side. I also try never to flip the temperature of the object from the light to shadow side -- unless it's a white object. If an object is red, then I keep the shadow some form of red -- I don't paint the shadow side blue. That seems painfully obvious for bright colors, but it becomes more subtle for neutral objects. I also make things a little darker and more saturated close to where the light meets the dark. I also try to vary the color a little throughout the shadow .. often to a fault. | ||
Eugene Advanced Member Username: Eugene Post Number: 155 Registered: 8-2006 |
I'VE SERVED MY TIME OUT. New Year-- New Thread How do you determine the color on the shadow side of an object? When I painted plein air it wasn’t a problem. I just painted what I saw. But now I paint from photos, and in them the shadow areas are mostly black. I’m speaking of the shadow side. not a cast shadow. I think cast shadows usually pick up the blue of the sky. But shadow sides are different. With white or light objects it’s easy. I use tints of raw sienna, permanent rose and a blue and let them mix on the paper to form interesting warm and cool grays. But with darker things it’s not so easy. Say a red barn. I could simply paint a darker, duller shade of the local color by adding it’s compliment, but that would be uninteresting. I don’ t think it would work if I added the red blue and raw sienna triad to the local color. And dark colors tend to be a thicker consistency and don’t mix and flow together as easily. How do I determine the color of the light reflected into the shadows that make them so interesting? Do I look for the colors in surrounding objects that might be reflected into the shadows? It’s a puzzlement! Any thoughts or ideas? What colors do you use in shadows? |
