Shadow notes

Concerning landscapes:

1. Over half of all shadows are made from the sky color which is usually ultramarine blue, alizarin and yellow ochre in various proportions.

2. "For me, shadows are filled with light and air. I try to make the paint quality transparent in shadow areas to convey their airyness. In addition, the temperature of shadow areas is the opposite of the light source. If the light is cool, the shadows are warm, and vice versa." Donna Cusano

General:

1.Looking at any subject, you find two different types of shadows, cast shadows and form shadows. Once you begin to see the different types of shadows you will be able to take your painting further and make it more believable and interesting.

A cast shadow is what we think of when we sing the tune “Me and my shadow.” It the kind of shadow that is created when some object blocks the light source. For example, think of any object and then think of the shadow it would make if that object was sitting on a table or on the ground. The shadow you see is called a cast shadow. Same thing with shadows created by a flower blocking the light from another flower or a hat sitting on someone’s head. Even a nose can create a cast shadow. Casts shadows are the darker type of shadow because most of the light is being blocked out. Still there is color and a shadow isn’t a solid object… it is just a dark shape falling on a lighter surface, so some of that surface color has to show thru. Using transparent colors to create your shadows is a good idea but remember to make your shadows have sharp edges at the very base where the shadow meets the object but as the shadow leaves the object make the edges less sharp, less defined, softer and lighter.

A form shadow is the shadow that is actually found ON the object. Again it’s a shadow that is not in direct light. Mastering shadow form will help you turn an object making it have volume—three-dimensional. Form shadows are mostly soft having less defined edges and much lighter than it’s partner cast shadow.


Then there is the matter of reflected light, which I think of as a reverse shadow… lol, I thought I’d confuse you with that one.

Again, these are just notes cleaned up a bit. Hope I haven’t gotten anything confused.

2. Shadow color is determined by the light source and what the shadow is laying on top of. If you were painting a shadow on green grass and then that same shadow continued on to a pavement, the shadow would change color because the color of what the shadow is laying on top of would be different.

3. Reflected light is the light that jumps back onto the object from the light source hitting the ground, table, cheek other objects, as examples. Because it hits the ground, table, cheek or other object it will have some of that color in it but will be much lighter.

Color Wheel error

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Looking back at the first steps to create my very own color wheel, I see I made a mistake not in creating the color, but in placing it in its correct spot. Did you see my mistake?

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to work some more on the color wheel and do the first exercise.

Color wheel - spectrum colors

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Finished with my color mixing for today.

I made all the colors found around the color wheel using the recipes in the book I'm using. The only adjustment I made was finding a sub for thalo green. I decided it was close enough to viridian. I looked at the color wheel I had printed it off from the handprint site. I can't seem to find the exact one at the handprint site but I did find this one ... a value chart of colors all lined up against a gray scale value bar. I thought it was pretty cool and did answer some questions for me. http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/vwheel.html all the information at handprint.com is for watercolors but you can learn much that translates to oils and acrylics there. After all, pigment is pigment.

Here's my color mixing for today.



Another point I found interesting at handprint is this statement:

Because most artists have been trained under the "color theory" dogma that paints are just "colors", even knowledgeable artists or authors such as Michael Wilcox, Charles Reid, Susanna Spann, Jim Kosvanec or the late Zoltan Szabo do not always keep the distinction clear between pigments (colored powders), paints (mixtures of pigments and liquid vehicle) and "colors" (the product names given to paints). This results in frequent inaccuracies and outdated information in art instruction books, as explained in my book reviews. The editors at publishing houses such as Watson-Guptill, North Light or Watercolor Magazine share in the responsibility — after all, packaging and distributing information is their business. This confusion is an entrenched habit, abetted by the marketing techniques of art materials manufacturers, but a conscientious effort by artists, authors and publishers can put it in the past.

Color Study

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I'm beginning a study of color. I may have mentioned this a couple of times before, because I've started this color study several times and just got distracted. It would be good if I had a class that I had to show up to at a certain time and then get a grade at the end... that might help me finish up, but until then, I'm going to start again and again if that's what it takes. :)

For my study of color I'm going to use a book written by Arthur Stern called "How to see color and paint it". I may jump around a bit so I don't get bogged down in reading text and not getting paint on a canvas but I do intend on moving thru the exercises he gives. I've never made it past the third exercise before. There are 22 painting projects. I feel that finishing all 22 will give me a better understanding of where I go wrong with most of my paintings.

I'll post my progress if you want to follow along and welcome you to also post any exercise you might do too. Actually, if you would do the exercises with me, it might help me complete them. We could be classmates! :)

Get ready:

I'll be using 8 oil paints.
Alizarin crimson
Cadmium red light
Cadmium orange
Cadminum yellow pale
Phthalocyanine green
Phthalocyannine blue
Ultramarine blue
Titanium white

Palette knifes
Canvas
Palette
solvent and medium
view finder
set up box
easel
paper towels
pencil
tape
colored paper ... I may use material instead. (this is for taping to the set up box so you can change out the color of your background)
trash can
easel
lights

You might think listing these is silly but I'm also trying really hard to clean up my studio, so having a list of things I need helps me make sure I keep my essentials handy... ready to use.

I need to contruct a set up box. So that's what I'm doing today.

Time to move on

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It's time to move on. I've broken the dry spell and am inspired to go on to the next painting. This final edit is not what I had hoped for but learning to push values from the darkest darks to the lightest lights is good for me. The final painting is too green, but like I said, it's time to move on. After all, all three of the paintings have about 5 pounds of paint on each of them. Just teasing. :)

Gray Scale

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corrected values

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Corrected values... some correction on color