Play With Light and Shadow the Art and Techniques of Shadow Theater

Light and shadows visually ascertain objects. Earlier y'all can describe the lite and shadows you meet, y'all demand to train your eyes to encounter like an artist.

Values are the different shades of grayness between white and black. Artists apply values to translate the lite and shadows they see into shading, thus creating the illusion of a third dimension.

Hatching and crosshatching are simple and fun techniques for drawing shading.

A full range of values is the bones ingredient for shading. When yous tin draw lots of different values, you tin can begin to add together shading, and therefore depth, to your drawings.

With shading, the magical illusion of three-dimensional reality appears on your drawing paper. Figure one demonstrates hot to take a simple line drawing of a circle and add shading to transform it into the planet Globe.

Figure 1: Turning a uncomplicated line drawing into planet Earth.

You lot know the objects around yous are three-dimensional considering you can walk upwardly to them, come across them from all sides, and touch on them. Take a moment to look around you at familiar objects. Try to discover why you lot see their actual three-dimensional forms. Look for the different values created by the calorie-free and shadows.

Taking a closer expect at light and shadow

Before you can draw the appropriate values that illustrate light and shadows correctly, y'all need to be able to visually identify the following:

• Light source: The management from which a dominant light originates. The placement of this lite source affects every attribute of a drawing.

• Shadows: The areas on an object that receive little or no light.

• Bandage shadow: The dark surface area on an next surface where the light is blocked by the solid object.

The light source tells yous where to draw all the calorie-free values and shadows.

Effigy ii gives y'all some practice in locating the light source, shadows, and bandage shadows effectually an object, which in this case is a sculpture. As you look at 2 drawings of the sculpture, inquire yourself the following questions:

• Where are the light values? Look for the lightest areas on the object. The very brightest of the lightest values are called highlights.

• Where are the dark values? Night values often reveal the sections of the object that are in shadow. Past locating shadows, y'all tin usually place the light source.

• Where is the cast shadow? The department of the bandage shadow closest to the object is ordinarily the darkest value in a drawing. By locating an object's bandage shadow, you lot can hands detect the direction from which the light source originates.

Figure 2: Looking for calorie-free and nighttime values and bandage shadows.

The 2 drawings in Figure 2 have different low-cal sources. Compare them and notice the dominant light source in each.

If you guessed that the light is coming from the correct in the commencement cartoon, you would be correct. In the second drawing, the light originates from the left.

Seeing how a light source affects an actual object is more challenging than examining a cartoon. Identify an object on a table in a dimly lit room. Polish a powerful flashlight or a lamp (a lite source) on the object. Observe it from different perspectives.

Each time you reposition the light source, identify the post-obit:

• The shadows on the object (night values)

• The brightest areas (the highlights)

• The light values (areas closer to the low-cal source or not in shadow)

• The bandage shadow (the darkest values)

Exploring contrast in a cartoon

Contrast can be used to make your drawings more three-dimensional past accentuating the light and shadows. Past using extremes in values (more light and nighttime values than middle values) y'all create a loftier-contrast drawing. For a really powerful, strong, and dynamic drawing, yous can draw very night shading correct side by side to the light areas.

When a drawing has mostly light and center values, information technology is called low contrast. Some drawing subjects need to be soft and gentle. You can create a very soft cartoon and still use a total range of values. Think about a white kitten, for instance. About of the shading is very light, but the cartoon becomes more powerful if y'all use a footling dark shading in a few selective areas, such as the pupils of the eyes and the shadows.

Your drawings tin can appear flat rather than three-dimensional when you apply besides little contrast in values. Unless you are trying to achieve a specific mood or want the subject to look flat, always use a total range of values.

Figure 3 helps you see dissimilarity while exercising your vision. Have a few moments to explore the low-cal and shadows in this drawing more than closely. The face of the girl is drawn in profile. The boy'due south face is a frontal view. Notice how the daughter'southward profile is in the shadow of the boy's face.

The bright light on the front of her face presents a potent contrast to the nighttime shadow on the side of his face up. This makes for a powerful visual separation even though the ii faces seem shut together.

Figure iii: High contrast makes a drawing announced more three-dimensional.

Translating values you lot see into values y'all draw

Almost everything has more than one value. Depending on the light source, nearly things accept some areas that are very light and others that are quite dark.

If you wait closely at a mound of dark earth, you notice that it has several dissimilar values. If a fresh layer of snow covered this mound of globe, in that location would yet exist lots of values. When yous tin can run into a range of different values you lot tin describe your subject in the 3rd dimension.

Squinting to come across values and simple shapes

Seeing values is fundamental to drawing in the third dimension. Many artists can visually simplify complex drawing subjects by simply squinting their eyes. Squinting helps you screen out details and see unproblematic values and shapes. When y'all tin see the shapes created past different values, you tin draw your bailiwick more accurately.

Look at Effigy 4 and squint your eyes until the epitome seems to go out of focus. Compare the darkest values to the lightest, and endeavor to see the abstract shapes created by the different values.

The second drawing shows what you may see when y'all squint. Take annotation of the shapes created by the values.

Effigy four: Squinting to meet values and shapes.

Turning colors into values with squinting

Many cartoon media, such equally graphite, are designed for black and white drawings. All the same, most everything in the world is in color. You need to conform your visual perceptions to run into these colors as shades of gray when drawing.

Wouldn't it be nice if you lot could simply press a button in the heart of your forehead and magically transform the globe from full color to gray values? This ability would certainly make drawing a lot easier. Thankfully, only squinting your eyes tin assistance yous develop this skill.

Try these suggestions to aid you lot train your mind to interpret colors into values:

• Look effectually yous at different objects. Focus on only the light and dark areas and non the actual colors. Concentrate on the low-cal and shadows. Then squint your optics until you see the values of that object. Accept a mental note of where the lights and darks are. Think about how y'all could draw these darks and lights. Don't get discouraged if y'all can't do it correct away. With practice, you lot get better.

• Find a colored photo with lots of contrast. Squint your optics to cake out the colors and details. In your sketchbook, draw only the uncomplicated shapes and values y'all encounter. Add shading with only blackness, white, a light value, and a center value.

If your subject has, for case, light-pink and dark-carmine stripes, seeing two different values in the two colors is easy. You merely depict the dark reddish equally a dark value and the pink every bit a light value. But some objects have colors that seem to be the same in value. When this is the case, you simply have to rely on your ain discretion to determine which colors should be drawn lighter or darker than others. If your subject has stripes of nighttime green and dark red, you need to selection one to be a lighter value. Otherwise, you cease up cartoon a solid tone instead of stripes.

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Source: https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/art-architecture/drawing/general-drawing/drawing-light-and-shadows-200446/

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