Light and Shadow Plane Drawings

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Light and shadow planes are of import concepts that let an creative person to communicate the form and structure of an element in a scene, equally well every bit the direction of the sun. In this lesson, Ben shines a lite on the techniques used to render these planes accurately.

Landscape painting in a studio compared to painting on-location are completely different experiences, each with their own ready of challenges to confront. Painting landscapes on-location means y'all're faced with constantly changing natural lighting, as well as nature, only the experience itself can really make your inspiration flow.

In this painting class, Creative person Ben Fenske teaches you the fundamentals of mural painting through a series of lessons. These lessons include easy to follow instruction, assay of famous mural paintings, and demonstrations shot on-location, to assistance you meliorate your painting skills.

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Okay. I want to talk at present about sunlight and shadow
and a little bit well-nigh form, in this example three principal planes.
So let's talk outset near sunlight and shadow
and identifying a few subcategories of sunlight and shadow.

And I am going to just depict a little scene here with a tree.
And try to proceed this very simple.
Okay so I'm just going to imagine
a tree sitting in a field and imagine a few branches here and there.
A few sky holes. Okay.
So I've got my tree outlined.
I'yard going to paint a sunny mean solar day outcome.
on a sunny day. Let me just imagine the sun is somewhere up here.
On a sunny day everything falls into ii categories, one or ii categories.
Information technology's either everything is either being touched by the sun's rays
or information technology'south non been touched by the sunday's rays and that'due south it.
There'south a strict line.
It's either in - something is either in the sunlight or it's non in the sunlight.
And so that's an important sectionalization and distinction to make and information technology'south important to start to see
that in every object in the landscape.
Is it either in sunlight or is information technology not in the sunlight?
And so let'south look at those two categories
broadly offset. So subsequently I've outlined the tree,
I'g going to start thinking about two categories that those two categories shadow and light.
And it'due south going to be difficult sometimes because, especially on a foreground tree, you will have
some - you accept little $.25 of leaves that are in the light, mixing with footling bits
of leaves that are in the shadow.
And this is where simplification comes in, y'all either take to decide
okay I'm going to put every all of those those fiddling bits.
I'm going to actually just forget about those for now.
And is this by and large lite or mostly shadow?
And so I'one thousand going to simplify this tree and I'm going to make a distinction between light
and shadow. So what's getting actually hit by sunlight
and what'southward getting hit past shadow.
And I'grand gonna find a shape, a sort of two-dimensional shape.
There'due south a bit here of light.
And I'm only going to - I'm going to suggest a little bit of shadow with my brush
here. So I've got a big sectionalisation of light and shadow,
here'south a niggling shadow chunk in the light shape and that I've got mostly shadow
hither. It's something difficult to do exterior,
especially on a foreground tree,
just y'all accept to make that stardom: light or shadow.
Okay, in that location's another type of shadow that'southward chosen a cast shadow.
That'due south when an object casts a shadow onto something.
In this case, there's a tree, the sun is striking information technology.
It's casting a shadow onto the field
below it and to the side of it.
And then this is called a bandage shadow.
And cast shadows follow the form
of the object that they're cast upon.
In this case, nosotros accept a flat field, a fairly level field.
So information technology's not - it is revealing that class of the field. Okay,
so this is all everything I've scrubbed in here is shadow.
It's all shadow. Cast shadow, two dissimilar types of shadow then far. Let's await at
the light. So far I've got a a light shape, a sort of ii-dimensional light shape
that I haven't touched however.
I've got the field is in sunlight.
and at this point I've got light and shadow separated.
I demand to start talking about subcategories.
And I want to introduce the three chief planes in landscape.
The offset plane is the upright aeroplane or vertical plane.
And that is represented here by the tree itself.
And so when you're looking at a tree you're looking - it'southward nigh like y'all're looking at a
wall. A wall is a vertical airplane or an upright plane.
And then you lot're not looking at the top of the tree if you're standing in a normal
vantage - from a normal vantage indicate,
yous're not really looking down on a tree.
You're not looking - you're non laying on the ground looking up at the tree.
You're looking at the side of the tree.
And then so, in this instance,
nosotros've got the side of the tree but the whole thing is basically the side of
the tree. Part of it's in shadow part of it's in light.
So that's the upright plane or vertical plane.
The next plane is a flat plane.
That one is pretty easy to understand. In this instance
it's the field. And it's both the field in sunlight and the field in shadow.
They're both flatline planes. Okay I'm gonna innovate a third plane and this is the slanted aeroplane and
it often comes in the form of a loma or mountain.
So if you think about walking up a colina or a mountain,
it's anywhere from - allow'south think of the slanted aeroplane as roughly 45 degrees. So we've
got the level surface, that is our first aeroplane, we've got the completely vertical surface
as our upright airplane, and a slanted plan is somewhere in between those.
Then anything from y'all know 25 to
anywhere around 45 degrees roughly. So a fill, a mount.
So iii plans and all three of those planes can either be in shadow or low-cal.
So permit'due south put a petty bit of shadow on this mountain, permit's put a few facets
on this mountain. And brand a few
areas of shadow. And then perchance there'southward a very - maybe the lord's day is here and information technology's non
quite striking this part of the mountain.
Actually, non yet. I'm not - I'thousand not going to do that.
Allow's keep that in the light.
Okay, so for this scene we take everything divided either into a slanted airplane, the mountain
and the colina a flatline plane, and an upright plane or vertical aeroplane.
Something out let's get through,
I'm going to paint each of these and just talk well-nigh what you might look from
these planes. Then let's talk nearly the upright airplane in shadow, the upright aeroplane in shadow
is by and large the darkest thing in the landscape. I said generally because there's one exception coming
soon hither. So the upright aeroplane, mostly
very dark relative to the other planes. Upright airplane in shadow.
Then at that place's the flat plane in shadow. In this case it'southward a cast shadow.
That's generally going to be a little flake lighter than the upright plane.
And the reason for that is that shadow receive their light not from the sun but
from other light sources, in this example the ambient light of the sky.
So at that place's the big dome of the sky
and there's light come up in from all points of that dome of the heaven.
That's - that is where the shadow parts of the painting receive their light.
So if information technology wasn't for the ambient low-cal of the sky, these shadows would be
pure black. But they're not your black because there's light everywhere exterior.
So for that reason the cast shadow, or I should say bandage shadow on a apartment line plane
is mostly lighter than an upright plane because it's receiving more than ambience light from the sky.
There'southward more than light coming downwardly this style
so there is coming this way. Okay,
let'southward look at the lights now.
The upright airplane or vertical plane in low-cal is ane of the darkest things in the sunlight
in general. So it's in the sunlight
merely as far as the sunlight category goes, it's one of the darkest things.
So that is the upright airplane in sunlight.
You tin can encounter nosotros have 3 singled-out values and so far.
Permit'south paint in the flatline airplane in the sunlight.
The flatline plane is generally the lightest plane, the flat line plane in sunlight is the lightest airplane.
Let'due south paint that in. Okay and then that's the flat line aeroplane.
In the sunlight family.
But distinctly lighter than the upright plane. And this is a normal situation for over the
course of about of the twenty-four hour period.
So the lord's day will come upwardly, let'south
just recollect nigh the Sun for a infinitesimal.
Here's the horizon. When the Sunday rises here'due south the dome of the sky, sort of
schematic version. The sun rises higher up the horizon
and cuts across the landscape horizontally like thism
these rules might not hold true.
In that case, the upright aeroplane might be expected to momentarily be lighter than the flat line
plane. Just by the time the sun gets up
to here, these rules start to hold true.
And most people that I know don't wake up until the sunday is about hither.
So they never have to really even remember about that until the sun starts going down
over hither. Okay, and so flatline airplane, upright plane.
Permit's recollect almost the third plane,
which is the slanted aeroplane.
The slanted plane in the sunlight is going to exist slightly darker than the flatline plane,
slightly lighter than the vertical plane.
And then they're all in the sunlight family unit
and all merely slightly different values. And the same for a mountain, a mountain is a
slanted airplane. Yous might be able to showtime seeing a hill, you might be able to
see the meridian of the hill for instance, a little bit of the tiptop plane of
a hill. In that example it'due south again the flatline plane. So it's this plane.
At present. y'all're seeing it up here.
And let's paint the mountain then and the mountain is a slanted
plane. Information technology's existence afflicted in this case by aerial perspective a bit.
Okay, and so iii planes and 2 categories either light or shadow.
Let'south await at a few subcategories now.
Ane subcategory might exist a one-half-tone,
although in mural painting we don't really deal much with one-half-tones.
In that location's not a lot of modeling that goes on within a shadow mass or a light
mass. But in that location might be a piffling chip of variation in this light mass
and you can think of that every bit a half tone,
although if you wait at the great landscape paintings there these two masses are
very simplified. There'due south not a lot of modeling that goes on.
Merely maybe a little bit, mayhap you run into a footling bit lighter as it - as the
tree rolls effectually towards the sun
and perhaps a trivial bit darker
as the tree rolls towards the shadow.
But it's something probably to exist avoided.
Besides much modeling in the - inside the mass.
So I would generally try to avoid half-tones.
There is another category of light which is a highlight.
And those I remember are very useful to landscape painting because you lot have the brilliant sunlight,
if you lot're facing towards the sunlight you lot can often get or you can often run into
highlights on leaves, on water, on grass, especially in the foreground. So a highlight is a
little detail after the big masses have been figured out,
simply it is an important detail and you might get a few highlights hither and at that place.
And what a highlight really is, information technology's
it's a reflection of the lord's day on the get out.
It's that foliage is interim like a little mirror
to the sun. Another important plan is the under plane.
In this case we're not seeing much of an nether plane.
Only we can maybe suggest a piffling bit of an under plane here.
And so again that say information technology'southward a horizontal airplane,
just it's underneath an object.
So it tends to be one of the darkest plans.
So three planes and two categories of light or shadow, general categories, and and then a
few subcategories. This sounds very simple.
But it'due south something that'due south actually pretty difficult
to understand and to exist able to do in a painting.
And just actually it's difficult to see outside sometimes considering there's so much detail,
then much information outside and you take to sort of see past that and meet to
the bigger forms of things.
And the more I paint, the more I realize how important
these basic things are then if yous get these in the right order
your painting volition have structure.
And keeping these things in mind volition give y'all a solid painting.
Okay. So now that we have some of the theory behind these planes and these categories
of light and shadow, allow's await at a model and see how they work nether different
weather.

Okay, I'm here with a little model that I made.
Then allow's take a await at some of the major planes of the mural and how
calorie-free and shadow work on them.
Okay, let'due south take a look at the model hither.
And we're at present - imagine yourself looking into the sun.
So the sun is at your face. What y'all're seeing is lots of shadows in the
upright planes. This is the upright plane there, almost all in shadow in this effect.
We've got cast shadows coming towards the viewer.
This is a shadow cast onto the flatline plane
by the tree and we take flatline plane in sunlight.
We've got our slanted airplane back here, the mountain or hill.
And the same thing happening here on the house.
I accept a slanted plane,
which is in a raking lite,
just information technology nevertheless sunlight. We've got a flat line airplane in sunlight, our bandage shadow,
which is on the flatline plane, and so the vertical or upright plane.
And allow's just accept a look at
the types of values that yous would probable see in this scenario.
So the darkest thing would exist the vertical plane and shadow
and a 2nd darkest thing would exist the flatline plane in shadow or cash shadow
in this case. And then darkest and so getting a little scrap lighter
and then jumping to the slanted aeroplane in sunlight then finally the lightest thing.
Throughout most of the day is the flatline plane or ground plane in sunlight.
Another category of light to retrieve well-nigh is reflected lite.
And this reflected calorie-free is is going to exist within the shadow.
Allow's introduce fleck of green grass and see what the fact that has on the white
house. And then you lot can see that the the green is reflecting back into the vertical plane
of the house. The sunlight is coming downward here, Illuminating this green grass that is at present
reflecting back into the house, the shadow of the house and the whole firm now looks
green. And then information technology's a white house,
the local color is white,
nut now as a painter y'all meet this every bit a a type of green.
Okay, let's run across what happens when we innovate some other color.
In this case let's imagine a very warm piece of earth represented by this red.
So now the shadow of the the house becomes almost completely blood-red.
Permit'southward think about what happens for instance,
if we build a little befouled next to this business firm
and paint it blood-red. And we might become some of the reflection from the side of
the barn. And some of the reflection from the grass.
Sp at present yous have a gradation going red to greenish.
Then most of the time on a sunlight effect the shadows volition be illuminated by
the sky, which is mostly a absurd bluish colour.
Simply because of reflected light
those colors can change. So continue that in mind.
Try to imagine
what's Illuminating the shadows. This has an effect even on the lights.
Let's meet what this looks like.
So hither you lot can see there'south a subtle
green reflection back into the white of the house.
Only if we await it'due south more than apparent in the shadows.
So I hope this helps to analyze the concept of light shadow and planes.
Let's have a expect now at some paintings and come across how those artists dealt with this.

Okay, let'due south see if nosotros tin identify sunlight and shadow
and also identify some of the master planes of the landscape.
I'm going to expect at an image here.
This is a sketch by, I believe this is an Isaac Levitan sketch.
Let'southward take a look and only place sunlight and shadow first.
In this instance, in this painting nosotros're looking into the sun
and all of the upright planes, meaning the side of the house, is facing us.
And the sides of the haystacks
and the sides of the debate posts. They're all in shadow.
In that location's no sunlight hit those planes.
They're besides casting - this house is casting a shadow towards us and that is a little
shadow right here. This is a cast shadow.
It'due south a shadow being bandage towards us by the house.
Hither we take little bandage shadows of the argue,
little bits of shadow downwardly hither. Nosotros can encounter sunlight.
This is all sunlight. This whole area is in sunlight.
This area's in sunlight. This is all sunlight, sunlight.
And then in this painting we but have mostly upright shadows, upright planes, and shadow. A
few casts shadows and everything else in sunlight.
We too take slanted planes.
That would exist the roofs,
slanted airplane. And you would expect that those roofs to exist receiving less sunlight than
for example, something similar the apartment aeroplane in sunlight.
And then here we have a example where the flat plane in sunlight is lighter than the
slanted establish in sunlight, which is exactly what you'd expect in this effect.
Okay, let's wait at some other image.
Here nosotros accept another image,
we accept a similar effect of light, we take looking again into the sun.
Permit's just place light and shadow first. So nosotros take sunlight.
This whole surface area then adjacent to it a large piece of shadow.
Okay it's very subtle. Subtle differences in the background simply singled-out, it's very distinct
this sunlight and this shadow are very distinctly different.
Yet they're very close together in value.
This probably could be considered a vertical aeroplane or an upright aeroplane or a slanted
plane. So we don't really know, it'south probably - information technology's almost looks like a vertical airplane, somewhere
between a vertical plane and a slanted airplane.
Let's look downwards hither. We have these little pieces of sunlight here, here, here.
Tiny little flecks of sunlight, sunlight, sunlight on the trees, sunlight all around the edge of
this tree. And and so everything else in the tree, we have virtually 95% of the trees
in shadow. Big shape right here.
And then that's an upright shadow.
Here we have a cast shadow.
It'southward on the flat plane, it's on the flat line aeroplane.
And it'south a cast shadow.
It's a shadow that's being cast by these two trees.
Casting a shadow correct here towards towards us.
Let's place a few more things.
Flat airplane in sunlight, a little bit of a this could exist a flat airplane in
sunlight or could exist considered a slanted airplane in sunlight.
This is probably a slanted airplane in sunlight right here.
Sunlight on this snow or glacier and again,
this could be either slanted or flat line playing plane, probably a slanted aeroplane. So nosotros accept very
clear sunlight and shadow break up in this motion picture.
And so very clear distinctions between the upright planes and the flat line planes.
In this case nearly all the upright planes are in shadow considering we're looking towards the
sun. Let's look at some other prototype.
Okay, allow's await at this painting.
We take a lot of shadow in this painting and a little bit
of sunlight. Then everything in this painting, the
whole foreground, this is all shadow.
This is all shadow. trivial $.25 of shadow in the trees, shadow, shadow, shadow $.25 and
trees. This is a shadow.
Here this is a reflection of a shadow, this shape.
So it'southward non actually a shadow information technology'southward just a reflection of a shadow.
And it looks similar in the distance the sunlight and shadow are starting to converge, can't
really distinguish what's what dorsum here,
simply it looks to be a like - information technology looks to me like there'south a lot of
shadow back here. Shadow $.25 everywhere in the groundwork. And and so this disorder.
Orange shape here. This is all sunlight hitting the tops these copse.
This must be either the cease of the day or are very beginning of the
twenty-four hours. So it's either early on morn or or late evening motion picture.
So all this orange stuff is sunlight.
One interesting affair nearly this painting is we can come across all the value variety inside the
shadow. We accept a snow affect here.
So we have a white local color or white object
like snow. So we can run into how light it is fifty-fifty in the shadow.
Nosotros could compare information technology to the heaven and see if the snow is lighter than heaven or
darker than the sky. I recollect in this case the snow is darker than the heaven.
But it's lighter than some of the things in sunlight,
which is interesting. And then this is not receiving any sunlight and yet it's lighter than
some things that are. And that's due to a local color difference.
Okay let's wait at some other image. Okay,
here we become. Okay, this picture is great because we have very very clear separation between
light and Shadow in the groundwork.
These are extremely distinct athwart shapes.
So we take these purply shadows back in this mountain and so in between this
purple stuff we take lots of sunlight.
And in the foreground besides, most of the foreground is in shadow.
All this stuff is in shadow.
And we take some low-cal shapes in the foreground or centre basis.
So he have a big shape of low-cal.
Here this is all light.
This tree is generally in low-cal.
This tree we have light around the edges.
And light effectually the edge of this tree as well.
Let'due south wait at some planes at present.
So the the dorsum mountain could be thought of equally a slanted plane.
So hither we have slanted airplane in sunlight, slanted playing in shadow.
This middle ground loma. This is all a slanted plane.
It's all in shadow. Here we have an upright, this tree and function of its in shadow.
So this part of its in shadow
and function of it's in sunlight.
So upright tree, upright plane, sunlight and shadow in both of them together.
We could probably say that this is a apartment line plane
all through here. Flat line plane all in shadow, more upright planes, the trees we might get-go
to run across a niggling bit of meridian plane on some of these bushes or shrubs.
So upright, upright, upright vertical planes, meridian planes are apartment planes.
So this picture has got sunlight, shadow, and represented and all iii of the major planes
represented. And allow's meet if we can -
yep. Allow's look at another image.
Okay, this must exist a stop of the twenty-four hour period picture.
And it looks like the sun is at our dorsum
and something behind us is casting a shadow and almost the whole picture show is in shadow
except for there's a trivial shape of sunlight back here, this back hill.
It looks like this is all sunlight.
Sunlight, sunlight. And so everything in this flick is in shadow except for this shape of sun
dorsum here and mayhap a few touches of sunlight
here and here. So by and large shadow, trivial fleck of sunlight.
So we've got vertical planes, upright planes, the trees.
We've got our apartment line plane.
It's in shadow. We have more vertical planes,
slanted aeroplane, and it looks like this might be a slanted aeroplane or hill back hither
that'south in sunlight. Let's look at i more image here and just identify what's in sunlight,
what'southward in shadow, and let's Identify some of the principal planes.
It looks like a sort of middle of the day film.
We're looking slightly into the sun.
We run across big patches of shadow.
This whole cliffside which is a - it's a vertical or upright plane.
Information technology'due south all in shadow. And information technology's casting a little chip of shadow onto the water correct
here. So upright airplane, flat line airplane both in shadow.
Nosotros encounter a little firm back here.
And that's all in shadow, this side of the house.
And that'south a vertical or upright plane.
We see in the trees
e see nearly sunlight, patches of sunlight, and mostly shadow though.
So nosotros see a lots of shadow.
Same affair back here some patches of sunlight.
just mostly shadow. The flat line airplane,
this is the flat line aeroplane,
and it'southward almost all in sunlight.
Some other flat line aeroplane here sunlight. Here we accept a niggling bit piece of a cliff side
and that is a vertical aeroplane in sunlight,
more vertical or upright planes in shadow. When nosotros get to the background the shadow and
the sunlight merge, and we can't really tell what'southward - tin can't distinguish anymore between sunlight and shadow.
We can look at this wave,
nosotros could say that the side of this wave is we could call that a
slanted plane. And nosotros can run across that it's darker than the apartment line plane in
this case because it'south reflecting the sky differently.
We could see that all of the vertical planes in shadow are conspicuously darker than the
flat line planes in sunlight.
Here nosotros have petty pieces of vertical planes of trees.
little pieces of sunlight effectually them sunlight, sunlight. Okay,
let'due south look at 1 more image.
Another picture here. I call up this is an Edgar Payne.
And we come across lots of shadow.
We see a series of copse going into the background.
Nosotros run across lots of shadow.
And we come across merely piffling bits of sunlight.
Then here little bit of sunlight.
A trivial bit of sunlight and detect how distinct they are. The shadow and sunlight are
so distinct. It'due south and then clear.
You can look at this painting
and the artist hither interpreted all those things
and categorized all those things and made a decision and he said he was outside,
he saw the tree, and he said the shadow starts right here and everything in this
shape is in shadow. This is all shadow now.
And this is a little piece of shadow.
And so these are all decisions that this artist had to make and he decided to
make very very articulate distinction between sunlight and shadow.
Let'southward look at a few of the different planes
and so here we have by and large lots of big -
lots of upright planes. So everything in the tree is an upright plane, both the shadow
and the sunlight. So upright shadow, upright calorie-free.
Here on the flat plane nosotros have bits of sunlight, mostly sunlight.
And so we have some of the bandage shadows from the trees.
Then the tree is casting a shadow onto the ground right here.
Two uprights, flat planes. We don't really have peradventure the mountain in the back is a
slanted plane. We can barely see information technology back in that location.
So upright shadows, upright calorie-free.
Flatline plane, shadow - or sorry calorie-free hither -
and flatline shadow. Okay. So
I hope that you're starting to run across the differences between the iii master planes.
And the deviation between calorie-free and shadow,
allow'south move on to aerial perspective.

So now that I've talked about light and shadow,
your consignment is to go outside on a sunny solar day and divide everything upwardly into light
and shadow. And so that's everything that's either existence hit by the lord's day or non being hit
by the sun directly. What you're going to need is a modest panel and one or
two brushes, ane castor but for shadow and one for low-cal. Yous tin do this with
simply black and white pant.

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