Color & Light: Add Drama to Your Art

1. Intro: Hello, everyone. Welcome to this side of the Internet. My name is Brandon, and today we're gonna be talking about color and light. Color and light is probably the most enjoyable part of the painting process. At least I think determining that light source, you know the angle of the light source of color of the light source. The colors that of the local color that you choose have the same scene. But different colors of that scene can make it appear dramatically different. We'll be talking about a lot of things about slight atmospheric perspective. Some shadows were to be having a couple demos in there, a few live paintings, a lot of fun, so welcome to the color and like class and let's get started. 2. About Me: huh? So a little bit about me. I am a self taught artists. I'm primarily working in digital, mostly photo shop, using a wakame tablet. That is gonna be the tools we're gonna be using today and some of the demands in some of the demonstrations. So I consider myself, I don't know, an amateur, but not too much of an amateur. I have been doing this for a little bit, but just as a disclaimer, I have not been professionally taught on this. This is gonna be, you know, that that class where I try to communicate some of my thought processes and I hope to be able Teoh, share some of the knowledge with you Go. I mean, mostly of what I have learned is either from reading books or watching a countless hours of YouTube videos. Now not to toot my own horn, but I am fairly happy with some of the pieces that have been released in here lately. And I think that's a good thing for an artist toe. Have always be proud of proud of your work. Even if you're not like happy with the outcome, be proud of yourself for, you know, doing art. Still, even if if you fail, just know that that's just a part of the process. One other thing that I wanted to mention about myself is something Recently that I did was I participated in the challenge of the month for draw with Jazz. A challenge was t take one of his mind drawings and color it in And I was like, Oh, this is this is right up my alley. I got to do this. I entered in the project and guess what? I didn't went. I did not win. But you know that. Here's the piece I didn't win, but I was featured in his video as one finalist. I love the way Kitten Bones. One piece has a mix of reds and purples throughout the red. Feeling a little more of that kind of helps out with. I mean, pressing forward on hair kind of validates. Maybe you do know what you're doing 3. Basic Light: Okay, guys, let's go over some of the basics. And that is, uh, this little lighting set up here on this sphere. But I start on the left and identify some of the terminology here in this lighting situation. Lights coming from the left. Therefore, here on the left side, we have the light side, and on the right side, we have our dark side Now on wood material. You can't really see the highlight. So I have this marble here. You can see that little white speck. That's the highlight. And that is the point on the sphere where those planes are perpendicular with the light source. So that is the brightest of brights. As far as this object goes, Um, right here it's it's very soft, and it's almost unidentifiable. Um, but that's where it would. This is right here on wood sphere. That's where the highlight would be. And then you got your overall a light area on it. Slowly, great. Aiding over into the darks. You get into your mid tones right around here. And then this line right here is called the Terminator. That is basically the point of the spear that is transitioning over into shadow. That's where the light rays are being casted and they're like they're like thing, thing, thing, thing thing. And then right here is the edge of the of the the sphere where those light rays cannot touch. So that's that's what's causing that edge there. And it's It's a soft edge because it's a sphere, you know. It's not like a cube where it's like light and then dark. After the Terminator, there's your core shadow, which is the, ah, dark part of the the dark side. Yeah, so I got a lot to say about that and because the really interesting port and the the kind of the epiphany, I guess I don't know if it's called Epiphany. But it was a big of milestone in my artistic career. Learning about bounce light. It's the light side of this little edge here, and with that it that's bounce light for a K, a reflective life that's just saying, like where this plane here the bottom is lit that's bouncing light back up into the shadow side. Now bounce light is one of my favorite things because it you can have Ah, I don't know. It's really influence a lot of creative decisions in some of my pieces. You can really have some fun with that because it's not only carry on the light, but it carries color as well, and we'll get more into bounce light later on. Next is your occlusion shadow, and that is the point of contact where the object meets the plane. And that's usually the darkest. Because, you know, not much light is getting down in that crease and then follow by. That is your cash shadow that can get pretty dark. Usually outside. It can appear dark and and blue, really, because thes sky itself Okay, so when you're outside and you have the sun lighting up and then, um, what's what's happening on the shadow side? It's still being lit. It's not like total darkness, but it's just being lit from a weaker source. It's being lit from the blue sky, moving onward. Right now. The current lighting situation is similar to a late afternoon, almost like I guess, sunset, where you get these, the sons at a lower angle. So the shadows are being really dramatically stretched across the other lighting situations out there in the world, and that could be like a cloudy day it. OK, I know it's cheap, it's dirty. And models, they're passing out there tired of standing here. But this lighting situation and man, it's rough, but you gotta have a little bit. Oh, my gosh. You gotta have a little bit of imagination here. Um, but this is more like a cloudy day. You had this more diffused lighting situation, where our core shadow and are Terminator that it's very soft. It's hard to identify a light side of the dark side now are occlusion shadows for still fairly obvious. But that's Ah, that's kind of how lighting works on a cloudy day. And since we've talked about sunset, time of day and cloudy days, but, uh, we can talk about what is that? Maybe five oclock? And then there's like high noon. This is probably why my lighting situations in my art is good, because I don't I don't do high noon shadows because there's no drama there with those shadows pointing straight down like that. That was the interest in that key to good lighting is drawing a scene with good, easy lighting. So I guess this is a good point to mention out that there's a very clear definition of what's light and what's dark. So in your art, you you want to be clear with with your lights and your darks, a phrase that has been mentioned to me that I want to pass on to you guys because I think it's it's effective. My art. It kind of makes me think a little bit more when I'm applying light. Your darkest lights should never be as dark as your brightest darks. Okay, who Talkers wards? Uh, but store Broden store. So, yeah, just keep your value separate. Make sure you defined your lights from darks. No, as it is a cloudy day or or everything's in shadow or something like that. Well, I think that's it. Hopefully, that was an educational, a non to bounce light 4. Bounce Light: All right, let's get into bounce light now. Okay, so I've set up my model here with a really extreme condition. But that is not to say that you won't find scenarios like this in nature because you will. If you take a look at the shadow side here, you can see a lot of the same Hugh that is on the surface. And that is because Aziz illustrated previously, the light is hitting the surface and reflecting like a mirror would back up into that area . You can see how this could be a huge driving force for creativity in your art. Teoh manipulate those bounce lights and just have fun was color. And in your objects, even like here in his bill, you can see that there's variations of the yellow and the green, and you can just get, really, really have a really good time playing with us. Now, this bounce light in most situations, I won't say all because I feel like there's a situation for everything, but in most situations, your bounce light in still a shadow. It's not gonna out way the light side, so just pay attention to your values when you're adding in that bounce slide and try to keep him on the lower end and keep him around brighter than your core shadow, but still darker than the darkest part of your lights. Now I'm gonna put a little piece of color beside Donald's head and see if you can guess it without me even showing you. Can you guess what color that is? Well, I think you can, because it's it's pretty noticeable. It's It's boring, obviously, but that look at that isn't that amazing? How how light is working is reflecting off this plane and just really just pouring into those shadows in, um, England with those greens and some of the grey er tones of the of the shadow. And they're all just is creating a very interesting kind of rim lighting there. And you would think that it's its own light source itself. You won't really find the bounce light in the lights. I mean, I'm starting to block the light itself, but if I could angle this just so that it's being lit and I'm a light side E can't really get that that orange in there like I can hear on the shadow side and that is because the one it's not being lit properly. But the light source itself is just so intense that you're not gonna really see any of that bounce light because it's just being outweighed by the intensity of the primary light source. 5. More Bounce Light: Okay, so we're gonna talk about local color next, but before we start on that, I want to just talk about my little lighting set up here. It's pretty interesting. Instead of heaven, the spotlight like right here, my eyes too bright. Okay, isn't too bright. I set up, you know, I'll show you did Thank. So I got the spotlight there and then I haven't facing a white panel, and that is just causing a significant amount of indirect light coming over here and lighting my face. And remember, how is that earlier that you, uh, what did I say? Most situations, your bounce light in still a shadow. It's not gonna out way the light side. But here, this is literally bounce like, uh and it's treating as I highlight here on my face. And then, you know, it's pretty late now. It's dark and gloomy. It's raining, and there's a lot of blue light coming on. This is really, really interesting kind of color scheme you don't even see, like the bounce light from my hand like this bounce light from from the panel to my hand is bouncing onto my neck and you see how it's just gets a little bit lighter there in that blue and the orange from my hands is playing in with those blues on the from the light from the window. Even though that's a shadow side, there's still some kind of like coming in. Um, so it was, uh, interesting little center before I got started here. Now, local color, okay? 6. Local Color: Okay, so I thought I was gonna blow your minds with this section on local color. But apparently it's not gonna work out with. I thought the yellow biting from the spotlight was gonna affect my model here a little bit more dramatically than it has, but regardless, we can learn something from it. Okay, So local color is the actual physical color. Uh, you know, if you pull out your Crayola and it says red on there, it's red actual color that we kind of perceive it. As I was thinking that local color was kind of a myth, because in nature, you, the son, really does affect how the color actually is, but we perceive it as like the grass is green, the trees or brown. But if you consider the actual lighting from the sun and then the secondary lighting from the sky, your colors are really determined on that. With this set up here, the lighting really isn't affecting the local color. If I drop his hat, here it is blue. I mean, straight up like that's like blue right there. You can you get more blue than that. Uh, same thing with his bill. Uh, it's I mean, how do you even get more yellow than that? It does have some variations. That's Ah, that's a good note Teoh to make Here is the variety of different yellows in the slight shift in values in his bill. You know, if this plane is facing slash to slightly, a little bit more tilted away from the lights, or so it's gonna get darker, not so dark that it's casted in the shadow but a little variation there. Obviously, here's his highlight of that plane, and it's getting less less saturated. Teoh appear brighter. That's what local color is. That's a pretty easy concept to grasp. Now there's this one artist known as Simon. I can't pronounce his last name. It's right there. There's the website he's got. He's my hero, really. I mean, this is some really incredible artwork that he does. I wondered a lot about just studying his his work and doing some little thumb now studies the color. I would oh, man, I would love if he would make a class on here. That would be fantastic. Anyways, so I have one of my favorite paintings here by him, and to illustrate my point about local color is in this painting. There is no local color. Maybe that car is green. Maybe his sweater is red. And maybe that building is yellow. But this is a very monochromatic piece. Meaning it's just blue. Granted, the windows are actual yellows. Like if we drop the warm in here, you're gonna get some orange and yellow. But look at this. Uh, this brick right here, these bricks, they appear pretty much yellow, don't they? I mean, they can't look yellow. You would say that was that Local color is yellow, but last I drop. Look at that. I cannot find any yellow in there. That is all blue. That is all blue right there, like local color for this piece, for at least this time of day is non existent. Your perception of color is manipulated by the colors and ambient light's around that color . This appears yellow to us because if we I dropped this, watch the shift over here it goes more saturated further up to the blue. The color around it is a lot more saturated lafleur than this color. And therefore that's why appears yellow are graze. A tin can can really be tricky like that. You can illustrate the idea that color by using a Breyer Tom. So I guess the big take away from this ISS that consider your ambient light consider the environment around the the painting. And you know, if it's Sunset Unit, which is known as the Golden Hour, where everything is orange and reds and you play a lot with that afternoon, you're going to get more yellows from the sun, and you're going to get some really deep blue shadows. Yeah, so consider that ambient light bounce light and you should be good should be. 7. Atmospheric Perspective: Okay, let's talk about atmospheric perspective. Atmospheric perspective is a great way to add depth into your art. It also makes your art look more realistic. So what is it? It's basically the forms and objects that are further away have less details, less contrasts, less saturation and our overall brighter than the objects in the foreground. The further objects also tend to take on the same hue as the sky. Now in the demo here on painting two examples of this now they're fairly quick sketches. So don't judge me too harshly on here, but they clearly illustrate atmospheric perspective. Let's talk about the top one a little. You can see the subtle mountains in the background now. If we were standing on these mountains, we would see some greens, browns, basically earth colors. But since we're reviewing the mountains from a distance, they pretty much are blue silhouettes. They're blue because they take on the similar hue as the sky. Now, if this was a sunset, I would make it a little bit more orange or if it was storming, I would make it a little bit gray er. Generally the sky will be brighter than the mountains so the silhouette of the mountains are clear. I think with this piece I did a little too intense on that sky, Grady and and made the values a little too dark. If I wanted Teoh take the sketch and render it into a more finalized state, that's something I would gather more references for in Ah, and do a little bit better job at working that out. Along with some composition changes. I think the floating islands are a little too equally spaced. But speaking of the islands, I'm using repetition in this piece to sell that those air floating landmasses in the foreground and make it very clear for the viewer what it is they're looking at. So when I add a silhouette of the island in the background, the viewer knows exactly what that IHS now for the mountains I didn't need add mountains in the foreground because we're all very accustomed to see in mountains. We know what they look like. But since we're not used to seeing floating islands, uh, it's important that I illustrate for the viewer exactly what it is that they're looking at . If I just had silhouettes of floating islands and nothing in the foreground to clarify what that was. Nobody would know what it waas. So if you're designing like your own fantasy scenes and your duties, it's assigning something unique. Repetition is a good use to, ah, clearly illustrate for the viewer. What that IHS? Okay, so let's move on to the next example this one much simpler this time I'm going for a more monochromatic color palette since it's in the woods and perhaps early morning, I quickly designed this forest, seen by simply using lighter values in the background and darker ones in the foreground. Now I'll try to choose the right Hugh or value when drawing one of these tree barks, or even in the last example. I'll try to choose the right blue for the mountains, but if I'm having a hard time selling that depth, I will simply I dropped the sky color, take a soft brush and lightly airbrush over the object. This works out great if perhaps I render too many details for those objects in the distance it helps remove. The contrast applies the correct hue and helps flattens it out the way distant objects should be. Yes, I did cheat for the characters in this piece. But that's okay with me. I still develop the composition, which is more important than how well the color characters air decided, at least for me. Also, this is just an atmosphere perspective. Less than not, you know, character designed. So I'm okay with taking some shortcuts on that As we come to the end here. I just want to say this effect also could work indoors, and it can even be applied to character. Decide. So you're designing a dragon? Well, you can render out his face really well and to emphasize the scale of the creature as some atmosphere perspective to his body to illustrate some depth. Okay, that's all I got to say about Abbotsford perspective and to conclude this section. I'm just gonna leave a few examples of paintings here just to drive home the idea of atmospheric perspective 8. Learning from Photos: I found this interesting picture while looking for a house to buy. And, um, I I thought it was pretty interesting little little image because it says a lot about how how light works. A Sfar. As you know, the outside lighting goes with sun in the sky and everything. So we have our primary light on the left, which is the sun, and you can see it shining through, you know, a window over there on the left. And then we got our secondary light source, which is the sky, the sky being a light source in itself. Now, if it's a cloudy day, we'd probably be seeing a little bit different situation here. You probably very, very muted. First of all, you wouldn't have the sun and that blue light, maybe a little bit it wouldn't be is blue. I think I think everything would be kind of defused. Another interesting thing before I in the clip here, I want to point out, is if I I drop this this side of the wall, I just want you to pay attention to this color dialog box area and watch the shift in in its location watch where it goes So right here, here, here, towards the corner. We're gonna go here towards the wall, the blue wall, and it is bluer. Um, it actually has, like, no blue in it, though it's just a gray er a more grade down version of this year. The you, if you were. If we're looking at this slider right here, the hue itself, it's hardly even shifting at all. I mean, it's subtle. So, um, it is doing a little bit, but for the most part, it stand in those warms, but it appears cooler because it's more great down has something interesting to take home with you guys is you don't always have to use the cooler colors to show a cooler temperature, right? And the reason, obviously why it's getting it's warmer on the left and cooler on the right is because of the bounce light. You know that, like shun and in on that floor, eliminating it and then that light temperature. The temperature of that light is bouncing up into the wall, carrying its value, as well as its colored up into those those walls. And and as an artist, I think this is really fun to play with because you can play with the intensity of how much it travels. If you're going for realism, you want to become subtle about it. But if you're for more personally an impressionistic type style that I like, you can tug and pull it, maybe put, you know, a little bit more about spite up in those areas Then then you would see in real life toe kind of at his dramatic effect of color and light. Even take a look at the ceiling. See this little warm here and the Cools here, Um, that bounce likes hitting with the ground reaching up into the ceiling. I did this effect on this one picture. You know, the sun's coming in from this angle. Therefore, it's casting this this light source through the window, and but it's also hitting the grass on the outside. And I was like, Well, if it's hitting that grass so intensely on the outside, maybe some of that bounce light would be like coming up into the window and like hitting the ceiling just a little bit, and I didn't know for sure if that's really how it would work. But I was like you know what? I'm the arse. I can make that decision. I think I heard this quote the other day and I thought it was really cool. And I think it can relate to this. It's not trying. We're not trying. Teoh make it appear realistic. We're trying to make it appear believable. I think it was something like that. But that sounds legit, right? And that's what I do with my art. I don't want people to look at it and believe what they're saying. I don't want them said nothing to come out and question like wiser one that they're so being subtle with it. I don't think anybody's asking questions now. If I directly picked that color and put it up in there, people might be like, What? What's going on there? So, yeah, have fun with bounce. Like I keep talking about bounce lie because it's It's so it's such an interesting thing. Okay, well, that's Ah, that's it for this one. Uh, let's talk about something else or go drops so blurry. Why does it want to look at this? I'm just going to turn this off for the next one. Whatever. All right? Why is it so frickin dark. Is it this? Why are you picking that up? Thank you. Oh, my gosh. His camera. All right, so 9. Special Effects - Make it POP ;P: - did this painting demo pretty quickly, and I want to use it to show you this special effects. First of all, that you can use in Photoshopped that can really intense your lighting and the idea of a bloom effect. And what I mean by that you have a really intense light from, such as the sun or sunset and ah, foreground object. And but the light so intense that it kind of overlaps the object itself. And you'll see this not only in pictures, but you'll see it in real life as well. So I recommend using this effect. It can add some drama Teoh to your piece. So let's get started with that. I could use a normal brush and pick my color here and change it, I guess. Well, do. Since the sun is yellow primarily in this area, you said bright yellow and I can use a normal brush or a the layer set to normal and do this and I got about 50% opacity, and that's kind of cool. But instead of doing that, I like to experiment with the linear dodge blend mode. This creates some compelling lighting effects, and I'll show you that right now. So instead of that, let's create a new layer. Let's change its blend mode to linear Dodge, and we're gonna take it down a little bit. I find that heaven in in the mid to dark range has a better effect, and here I am, just airbrushing it. So there's that. And then there's the normal. You see how the normals a little bit more opaque and not blending with all the shapes that I have there quite as well as the linear dodge blend mode. And you can also do this effect with a color dodge, and that might yield different results. But instead of having it dark out, I usually have color dodge for a brighter affect. And I current you Teoh. You can see there, and that's kind of neat to, because that's putting some reds in that foreground shape would just if I'm quite interesting. So I encourage you to experiment with those two bloody modes when you're wanting some really intense lighting. So now we got the sun, and maybe I want to see. I'm going to just experiment here with the red and see when when you overlap your light like that it really adds a sense of atmosphere to it because, you know, as we've talked already, the further things get back, the more they blend with the sky, and this can really separate your foreground elements with your background elements. And we don't have to use this just with sun. But this blending mode work quite nicely with maybe some of the lights inside the building . And sometimes I find that painting with our brush blending mode set toe linear dodge can have a more, uh, more appropriate effect. Instead of just having the layers blending boats until the New year dodge. I usually try to paint on one layer, and I don't never really change the that layers blending mode. I just changed the brushes blending mode. Usually, when I, when I paint like that leaner Dodge works really well, let's try paying those windows one more time, this time with layer and the brush blending mode set till in Your Dodge and what I like now what it's doing is I can start a window and then I can go over it a few more times, and it has this, like stacking effect of intensity. One of my favorite things to do with color and light to create come A dramatic effect is have a healthy amount of variations. So in the beginning, I'm not only started with an abstract canvas, but I start with abstract colors and this is to have that variation a neat trick that I did through that process. Waas. I grabbed a bunch of different colors one, but also once I had a healthy amount of colors on there I went toe filter noise, add noise, and I changed, uh, made sure that this monochromatic wasn't checked and I just had I think uniform is what I've used. And then what that did was it added a bunch of little pixels. I'll do if defect here again, and I'll change the, uh, on the wrong letter. You know what? We're just gonna blend these layers together because, Ali, this is why I paint on one layer. Always him on the wrong layer points. Maybe here, that's fine. And I'll do this in the beginning of the process because each one of these little pixels not look at Look at the variation shift that change just all over the place. I mean, not It is like so much variation going on there. So Adam, but other noise effect in the beginning of the process ads in a bunch of different variations of color. So when I do, I drop a color. You see how it's shifting all around the place so I can paint that. And then I could take that that that in the It's subtle, but it's just enoughto add Cem some interest in there. And if you take a look at the world all around you or even a photograph, you'll notice, uh, like the grass. It's not just, you know, yellowish green or just green. It's got all kinds of different shifts and, uh, slight slight hue shift and slight tone shifts, which can add another level of interest here. Your paint So painting with linear dodge brush on one layer. We can add this. Choose the right color kind of neat effect, and by stacking it, you can get some variations in there, and then maybe I want to use an airbrush instead to make one of those windows pop even more . I don't know, but the idea is just Teoh. Start using a different blending modes in your paintings, and you can find that they can have some meat lighting effects, especially that color Dodge one and linear Dodge. 10. Thumbnails - Design Small First: Let's talk about thumb now. Some nails. They're great little, uh, practices that you can do before you get started on the final project. It's a place where you designed small so that you don't get too bogged down with details. A drawing small. Your focus in on just the light, the nude. If you don't already have a line drawing out for you, work on composition. This is, Ah, that challenge of the month of jazz A Had these were my initial thumb. Now's the one on the top Left was my original idea, and I was like, Man, I don't even want to do some now And But I was like, Wow, you sure? Because it's a great idea. And one on the top left was my favorite one. Once I got finished with it, I was like, Oh, yeah, that's the one I'm gonna go with. But then I was like, Well, let's try. You know, something completely different. Let's think of something different than what that scene is. And then I did the 2nd 1 I was like, Wow, that's really good. I did the 3rd 1 as just kind of just something to change it up, and once I finish, it was like none. It's it's probably not the one. And but then I was looking at the 2nd 1 a little bit more, and then so what I did with that I just drug it down. And I use the color balance school to change. Ah, the colors a little bit. And it kind of shifted it into this kind of new aspect for me where I was like, Oh, wow, this could this one could really work. And I was like, start comparing it with my original idea. I was like, You won't see with the original idea. I gotta sell the other idea that there's this light source behind the the the monument headstone or whatever the grave site, Um and so that would be a struggle. Like if it is not done correctly. Maybe, you know, people question it with this one, this one, there's not really anything to question a Sfar. As you know, the life is going so I was like, All right, well, let's go with that one. That one looks great and now, so that idea behind this is now a great dish out your ideas, even if you don't have, like a, uh, a big project that you're about to work on. Just work small in general as just a little sketches to practice, color and light. Just something Teoh experiment in. You know, it's not gonna be some big projects. So, you know, tried things start blended different colors together. See what kind of color matches you got on. And if you like it, take it to a new document and or whatever, and I blow it upto a larger resolution. Start rendering that thing. And soon you'll have this, You know, uh, this great piece, You know, we're gonna fail and projects. So the idea also is too plan to fail like the blue sky one. I already knew that was four glaciers like this, but I wanted to get another, and it got a little bit of mileage in to it. So that's great. Don't just jump pinto these big projects because without, you know, experimenting a little bit. Okay, I think that's all I got to say about that. Now, let's actually do a live demo where I I'm working with some nose 11. Painting Demo Part 1: Okay, guys, welcome to the painting Demo portion of this class. So, as you can see, we have four different scenes here and we're going Teoh, try to create Ah, dramatically different color scheme for each scene. I felt like the easy way to do this was to just create four different seasons. Um, the winner. Summer, fall. And, uh, I'm working on the winner one. Now, I don't know why I chose to do that one first, I think because I felt like it was gonna be the most difficult one. But, um, it actually turned out not too bad. I think you noticed that I started with a fully opaque color. I started with a fairly dark, low saturated color to begin with. And that's because painting light is a lot easier when you're not working on an overexposed cameras, overstepped and overexposed canvas being a white canvas. So it's you can see just how, like that red route that I just supplied. It's a lot easier, and it looks great. I think when you when you can apply those brighter colors on top of that dark background on ah, some of these little squares, um, mother fall seen. I start with a more abstract canvas, and I think the word for this class. But I want you guys to Ah, implement into your paintings, are in future arts or even just consider is variety variety okay? Whether it's brushwork, color, color temperature. Um, I think variety is everywhere in the real world, so applying that in your artwork is essential. I have to give credit to one of my mentors. I've watched some of his YouTube videos, and I've learned a lot from him, and that is Mark Obuchi. He's really taught me a lot. As far as brushwork and lining goes, One of the big things I think that I've learned from him is the abstraction that I can start with on a canvas. And, um, you know that that random brushwork. I mean, look at that mess right there in that fall, seen. I mean, it's just all over the place. I'm literally just playing around and having fun with it, and that's that. That's what I really love about this style is, uh, the enjoyment that I get out of it. It's just like being a little kid and splashing paint all around and uh, but with that, you like, I experiment with these different brushwork techniques. And eventually, once I get to, ah, more technical part of the process and start refighting things. The the brush work has a certain appeal to it. And I love Levitt, leaving some of that behind. And, you know, I I don't really even paint to, like, a full rendered like here recently. Ah, lot of my paintings have been kind of like these little sketches, and it just has this Ah, certain impressionistic look that I really enjoy. But anyways, let's start talk more about color. Um, I like doing these thumbnails because they allow me to strip out all the details and try not to get too bogged down. I don't try to do man and render any of the bricks or anything in the house. I'm just focusing on the light and the kind of form of the the house there. And you know, if the light's hitting it from here, how's the cash shadow gonna have backed? What's the colors? Um, And for the fall seen, I am most for a lot of these scenes that I use a warm, light, cool shadows for the shadows in the fall seen I'm going with a more purple than blue because that maybe that's an artistic decision. But I think I think in the fall when you have orange everywhere with the blue sky blending with those that orange it's gonna create more of a purple. And it's also kind of trusting your highs. Um, we're all in different stages as artists, as far as you know, what we can see and what looks good. You know, our skill set in our what we can see. Whatever. Anyways, I can personally see, um, like, I look at that purple. I think that yeah, that looks, please pleasing much better than blue would. I think, uh, well, actually, blue would look fine to you because orange and blue are complementary colors. But anyways, warm, warm light, cool shadow. It's good contrast. And that's the variety aspect into it, You know, combining those warms and cools. Okay, So see where we're at were already at six minutes. And let me just take a look at my list. - One also mentioned shoes in her interesting light. Um, at the beginning, I was joking about not doing, uh, new like high noon lighting. I mean, you can do high noon lighting, I think, like in the woods or something, That looks actually pretty cool. Um, but trying to go for interesting lighting. At least that's what I go for. And what interesting lining for me is, you know, around that, um, you know, golden hour. I guess son said something. One of the shadows get really dramatic and like playing with the cash shadows. Think, uh, there could be a lot of drama with that. Um, so I'm trying to find interesting lighting scenarios. So with this one this night scene, um, I thought what could be interesting about a 19 I can challenge myself and try to make something look cool with just No, no, no additional light, just like moonlighting. But why would I go through that trouble when I could make it even better? And, you know, throw in like a nice little glow from the window toe kind of illustrate somebody's home. And, you know, you can let the mind wander on what's going on in there. So that kind of goes with good composition, I guess. Are good storytelling. Um, yeah. And about getting to the point on this piece where, Oh, that there's, Ah, Lenny or Dodge for you, I think, for the glow effect on the window. So it doesn't always have to be this really intense sun to usually or logic. And do the soft glows Um, the yeah, notice how I'm not using really any black, even my darkest colors there aren't pure black. And I think this is good advice for for anybody because, well, if I was talking to a younger self of me, what like if I was talking to me a younger stage and my artistic growth, I I would tell myself, Stop using black because it's ruining your paintings and stop at in so much contrast in the in the end because it really it makes it too dark. And you know that when things get too dark or when you're using black, I feel like it's kind of a cover up for the lack of knowledge of of those details And when when you lack knowledge as an artist, you, uh, you can either taken artistic approach to it. Are you go find that information? Um, yeah, that's the first time I ever said that Maybe that might hold up true in the future, or I'll just cut it out of this video. Once I realized that didn't really make sense at all. So yeah, where we had I wanted to stop this at 10 minutes, and we're We're reaching about the 10 minute mark. Um, So I'm gonna go ahead and, um, let this play out until I start at in the rain effect on the, um, the dark one. And I'm going to go into a video warning. That explains how I pull that effect off. Just a little bonus for you guys. Um, is there anything I wanted to mention for this? Um, no, I think I covered just about everything I want to on my list here, so yeah, right. They're actually on the fall. Seen I dark in my colors to add more room to go brighter. So if you kind of darken the whole image and an e race out where the bright spots are, it's a little bit better way to add contrast than just using, like, the curves or levels or brightness and contrast command. All right, so there I have had in the rain and, uh, muscle. Let's go to that next video on how I did that 12. Make it Rain: Okay, So here's the rain effect. First you want to add a new layer, change that layered to black, and then go to filter noise, add noise. And for the settings here, it doesn't really matter. You can pull off the effect with both uniform and Ghazi in. You might see different results. I go with whatever selected, and if I don't like it, then I'll go back in experiment more. But the main thing is, ah, have this sent to monochromatic. So not with the color, but with just black and white. And then So now we got our dots, everything, and that's gonna be with the rains made out of. But next, we need to make it look a little bit more like rain. And that's going to go. And that's gonna be filter lair motion blur. And here I'll play with the distance. I don't want to go like that much that that, to me, doesn't really look like rain. That just looks like a bunch of pinstripe one. So I, um you know, that looks a little bit more like rain, and maybe I'll play with that a little bit more. Maybe something like that. Um the angle. I mean, you could go with, like, an angle like that, and it looks like, you know, the winds ball and really hard. But for what we need here, I'm just gonna go with 90. So it's just going straight down, and, uh, we're gonna click, OK, now that we have the rate, um, I'm gonna go ahead and change this to screen so we can see it without the black gets word of all the black. Um, and that looks OK. Not too bad, but I'm gonna go ahead and bring up my levels toe. Add some contrast for the black and white so that the white has stand out a little bit more Making the rain, staying out a little bit more. Uh, and you don't have to use levels. You can use curves or even up here. An image, adjustments, brightness and contrast. You can use, uh, contrast rain. It works somewhat. Maybe legacy turned on. It seems like it works a little bit better. Yeah, and that works were actually pretty well used legacy and then change the contrast to go up a little. And then the brightness down. You can see how you know, just it's a sprinkling here, which is it's pretty nice at work is like pouring down the rain. Um, I actually like the Sprinkles, and that was pretty easy. So I don't feel like I need to go into levels. But just for the sake of it, you can You can adjust these two, Um, if you're familiar with levels and adding contrast that way, some examples of this effect in some more serious illustrations just recently in the challenge of the month for geology aza I did that very effect right here using that noise and motion blur tats Marine here. Well, this is handmade like, uh, the actual splatters on his pants are, um, down here in the in the ground? Uh, but I didn't go overboard with it. So, like over up here in the clouds, you can't You can barely see any rain drops there more obvious over here by the light source, which is Thea Ghost Lady. And here's another example of that rain effect being used. Okay, I think that explains the rain back to the the the other video that we're working on 13. Color Demo Part 2: All right, let's finish this. We got 9.5 minutes left on this and, um yeah, there I am just struggling. Teoh had a puddle effect. I could probably benefit from studying a little bit more on puddles, but I know that there's some reflection and there from the building that will probably be going in there, but that's not the focal point. So I quickly go on to the next thing. And that's kind of the approach that I'm going here. This is, ah, technique that I've learned from Marco. Um, and it is don't work on, like, don't just detail a one spot and two It's like, fully rendered and then work on the next spot like I try to work on the whole canvas at at the same time. You know, I want to bring all of these four little houses to a complete rendered stage about the same time. Um, so yeah, I think the bottom left one. The rain one, um, came closer to a finish faster than the rest. But, you know, it's not a rule that I, you know, live by, but in general, I don't want to get bogged down with, you know, overworking in area. Um, I want yeah, tryto keep moving as if it's a nice pace. I if you haven't tried working this way, I recommend it. It's could be a change, and once you get used to it, it's It's quite enjoyable. Actually, Don't get bored is easily. I used to get bored doing art and with this new working on the whole campus at the same time. Technique. Uh, it's just It's so fun again. And, yeah, I changed the lighting scheme on the winner. One. I felt like I had this the same kind of lighting scenario in the top two, where it's the sun's coming and hitting the building straight on. So I went for a more backlit approach Can. It's been snowing here a lot lately, so I think somewhere I've walked down in my, uh, memory that hey, those shadows get really blue and snow and everything's just brighter because the snow so reflective there was that linear dodge coming through for us, making everything look really interesting. I love that command. That's not something you can really do in traditional medium so but it creates us that bloom effect that I don't know. Don't Don't overuse it, though. You can definitely, uh, destroy your painting or a scream amateur if you just lay that down everywhere. It's kind of like lens flares. I use Don't use lens flares all the time and my paintings. But, you know, if J. J. Abrams can learn to stop using lens flares, then so can we, um, working on those cash shadows for the trees. And you know that it a little bit of atmospheric perspective on the trees. You know, they're starting to blend in with the background a little bit. Some of those ones in the back. Um, you know, I have this random scatter brush. I also like to mention that it's not about the brush. It's about variety. I think so. Find some brushes out there. Um, you know, it doesn't matter. I mean, a lot of the default brushes air fine. A lot of artists say it's not about the brush, and I definitely agree with that, but I think it's it's nice of you find a good one that you really like. There's a few of the idea. I was struggling with that shadow there for a little bit on on the winter scene. I know the shadow needs to go there, but I was kind of trusted my eyes a little bit. And I was like, No, it doesn't really look right. And so I kind of got rid of it. And now I'm working on something else, but I know that I will have to go back to it and try to figure it out, because I know what Shadow is gonna be cast in there. But I think the the lights just so bright behind it from the sun that maybe it's over lapping the actual trees. And maybe, um, it's kind of defusing the shadow a little bit. Here's a technique where actually used a the lasso tool, and I don't even think I implemented it. But as you saw useful lasso tool and I was trying, Teoh had some linear dodge, but I felt like it was probably too gimmicky. Um, because I know I can overdo it, but using a lasso tool toe lock in that shape can really help, you know, at some shape, language and some interest there. All right, cash shadows. If I could speak a little bit more about those is something that I struggle with it on this house. And actually, it was kind of hard figuring out what the cash shadow was gonna be on on that roof. And you'll notice here in the end, all the struggling struggling with it on. And that's something that I definitely need to work on. I wish I could have gotten more into, Ah, how toe do cash shadows. But it's the cool thing about color and light for me is ah lot of it you can fake. Like I said before, it's not about making it realistic. It's about making it believable. And maybe there's a fine line there who knows? Maybe not. It seems like it's a little bit more forgiving, though. Like I know these shadows here in this winter scene isn't 100% accurate. But I don't think anybody's questioning those shadows because, you know, that's kind of how they know. Nobody questions shadows in the real world, I guess. I don't know. But it seems like you configure just a little bit just the the idea alone. Let's divvy were like They get it right. Hopefully, that makes sense. Um oh, yeah, so I don't think I've mentioned color balance yet. Color balance is in your, uh, effects panel. Or you can go to like, uh, I think it's filter that I don't know. I hit control. Be, Remember some high keys guys. E can't remember where it's that I know. If you click on that like half moon half, uh, son or whatever over in the bottom right corner of your layers, you can you can get it from there to, or if it's the FX, I can't remember just hit control. Be color balance, guys. It can. It can add some variety into. Well, it can change it It It's fun to experiment with some of these pieces. Um, so he control being. You can use the sliders. They're Teoh. Change the role temperature and something that I like to do is I'll duplicate the layer that I'm painting on use control, being to change the color balance and maybe erase out portions of that new layer so that part of the original temperature that I had is coming through and part of the new one is coming served. It can add variety. Like I said, I was awarded for the day. Um, all right. Were we doing here? Struggled with that cash shadow for the trio is trying to add some of this dappled light. Um, but I think I I think I got it to a point where that was happy with Yeah, that's not too bad. Um, just some refinement. Oh, yeah. Sharpen filter control f Or actually, I think it's not even control f with the new C C products control F actually goes adobe stock. I think I hate that. Hate you, Adobe, For doing that, I use that for filters. I'm sure there's a way I can change it, but in your filter you can get a sharp and kind of adds a Make sure sharp into it. Chris. There I am struggling with the, um, cat shadow on the roof. And that brings me to my last point. I want to make about art. It's not being an artist doesn't mean you have all the answers. Um, I felt like I was struggling with this roof. Obviously, like that's doesn't I can't shadows work. And I didn't know what I couldn't visually see it. And, you know, as an artist, you kind of think I should know these things because that's that's the identity I've set for myself. And but it's not. It's not about knowing things. It's about, you know, having the passion to work hard and keep striving to improve. And when you don't know something, figure, figure it out. And if you don't know how to figure it out, figure out how to figure it out. So with that shadow, have some clay that I got for Christmas and I haven't touched that. And like a few like all month, I've played with it for a little bit. When I first got in that this was just been sitting here, I was like, Whoa, awesome practical use now. So I made a little three. D model is crude, for sure, but it's, um it's definitely did that did the trick. So I created the three little three D model of the house, and then I use my flashlight on my phone. Teoh angle. It kind of similar to the lighting situation that I was going for, and I could see based on my model in the shapes on how that shadow is actually behaving, and I think I got to a point where I was happy with, um with the shadow. So if you don't know the answer, strive for figuring it out. You know, whether it's making something out of clay, were in three D program or asking, you know, one of your mentors. 14. Outro: I want to say thank you for watching the class, and I hope that you guys were entertained. And more importantly, I hope that you has learned something on color and light. And really more importantly, I hope that you're able to take something from this class and apply it to your heart and improve your artistic skills. Now, this is usually the point where I will sign a project. But after doing a few classes in heaven, over 1200 students up realized nobody really does. Projects have had maybe three or four students to do the projects that assigned. So I'm not gonna sign a project. You guys can upload anything that you want down in the project gallery. Whatever current art project you're working on or any good resource material you want to share with the class, that would be fine with me as something that you can do are going is continue your education. This is definitely not the everything you need to know about color. And like class, this is just one guy in his experience with color in line. How expected his are So something that I always like to do is do a little thumb. Now, studies of artists that I admire and other than that, uh, study from real live decent plane air paintings through some still live. Read some books. Color and Life by James Gurney is definitely a fantastic one. Mark Obuchi over at YouTube has some great videos on color and light. So continued your education on art something that you never recover master at. You're always trying to work and improve. At least that's how I feel about me, my artistic growth. This is the end. This is where I say good bye. But if you guys do want to keep up with me, you can follow me over an instagram that's instagram dot com slash kitten bombs. Gorgeous search kitten bonds. I'm always posting over there of new art projects, work in progress, some art videos, and I'll even do it. Give away every now. Well, that's Ah, that's about it. I don't really have much else to say. So cue the Outro cello