Transcripts
1. Shading Fundamentals Trailer: Welcome to the shading section of the Art and Science of drawing series. Shading is one of the most important skills you can learn as an artist or a designer, all creative individuals use shading in their work. Now in this series, we're going to be focusing on drawing, but learning how to shade in a drawing is a foundational skill that you can apply to numerous other creative endeavors. Almost everything you're going to learn in this shading course is based on the idea that all form, no matter how complex, simplifies down into just a few basic volumes. By understanding how to draw and shade these foundational volumes, you'll be able to draw and shade any object whether observed or imagined. This course is going to break the shading process down into a series of easy to understand steps. In every lesson you're going to be introduced to a critical shading concept, in every lesson we'll build on the next, so by the end of the shading course you'll have moved through the most basic ideas of light logic and shading to being able to render complex form. Now, if you're new to the Art and Science of drawing series, here's how it works. Every day you're going to watch a video lesson, and every lesson contains a demonstration program. At the end of each lesson, you'll be given a specific project to do on your own. Once you've completed the recommended practice, you're ready to watch the next lesson. The Art and Science of drawing series is designed to streamline your learning process as an artist, it's organized to give you the right information at the right time, and every project is designed so that you can practice the most powerful tools and concepts, and make the drawing process accessible at every step of the way whether you're a beginner who's starting off at the very beginning of this series, or a more seasoned artist who's decided to jump into the series at the topic that they are most interested in. In addition to my own drawings, you'll also learn from dozens of clear diagrams as well as the work of the masters, so you can see how the masters used the same techniques you'll learn in this course to create some of the most powerful drawings and paintings in history.
2. Welcome: Welcome to the shading fundamentals course in the art and science of drawing series. I'm your instructor, Brent Eviston. There are a few things I'd like to share with you before you start the first lesson. The first thing is that, I absolutely love working with students. Teaching drawing is a joy and a privilege that I take very seriously. Before creating the art and science of drawing series, I taught drawing for 20 years in studios, schools, museums, and universities. While working with students, I would constantly ask myself, what are the teaching tools and techniques that really connect with students? What tools and techniques show the most improvement in their drawing skills, and how can I teach these techniques in a way that really speeds up their skill development? This course is the answer to those questions. The courses in the art and science of drawing series, contains some of the most powerful teaching tools and techniques that are proven to teach students how to draw. So here's how the course works. Each day, you're going to watch one video lesson and then be given a project to do. Once you've completed that day's project, you're ready to begin the next video lesson. Now this course was designed so that you can watch one video lesson each day and do one project each day, but you're welcome to adapt the structure of the course to fit your schedule. If you can only get to one video lesson and project a week, that's fine. Feel free to make this course work for you. Now this is a project based course, which means that, every lesson is going to come with a specific project that's designed for you to get the most out of the skills you've just learned. The practice that these projects provide is absolutely essential to your learning how to draw. If you're not practicing, if you're not doing these projects, you will not improve. Having an intellectual understanding of these ideas is great, but practices required to really get good at drawing. Now, one of my great joys as a teacher, is to see students evolve and grow over time. So I encourage you to share your work. You can share it with family and friends, you can share it on social media, and of course, you can share it right here on Skill Share. When you share your work on social media, I encourage you to include the hashtag, evolve your art. Building a community when you're learning to draw, is a great way to be inspired to practice and get feedback on your work. Now this course is one of seven in the art and science of drawing series. Each course in the series focuses on a different, essential drawing skill. Now if you're a beginning student, I highly recommend going through this series in order, But if you've got some experience drawing, feel freedom, mix and match the courses to suit your own needs and interests. Now while you're taking the course, I recommend watching it on a larger screen. You're welcome to take the course on your phone if that's what you have available, but by watching it on a larger screen, you'll have a richer experience, you'll be able to see more detail in the drawings. If you'd like any other information on other courses in the art and science of drawing series, drawing resources, or a detailed description of what kind of materials to use, I encourage you to visit the website, evolveyourart.com. It's a great place to go for further drawing resources. Well, thank you so much for joining me. It's an honor and a privilege to have you as a student. So let's get started with our first lesson.
3. Light & Value: Welcome to the shading section of the art and science of drawing series. Shading is one of the most important skills you can learn as an artist or a designer. All creative individuals use shading in their work. Now in this series we're going to be focusing on drawing. But learning how to shade in a drawing is a foundational skill that you can apply to numerous other kinds of creative endeavors, including fashion design, architecture, character development for either video games are comic books, and of course, painting, and fine arts. Almost everything you're going to learn in this shading course is based on the idea that all form no matter how complex simplifies down into just a few basic volumes. By understanding how to draw and shade these foundational volumes, you'll be able to draw and shade any object whether observed or imagined. By the end of this course, you will have a deep understanding of how each of the foundational volumes operates in light and how to combine them to create more complex forms. This course is going to break this shading process down into a series of easy to understand steps. In every lesson you're going to be introduced to a critical shading concept. In every lesson we'll build on the next. By the end of the shading course, you'll have moved through the most basic ideas of light logic and shading to being able to render complex form. We've got a lot to cover today, so let's get started by talking about how light actually works. To illustrate why it's so important that you understand how light works, indulge me in a thought experiment. Imagine yourself in a pitch black room. You know that this room contains people and objects, but the room is so dark, you can see no evidence of them. Imagine what it would be like to walk around this room. Although the darkness would keep the objects hidden from your view, they would still maintain all of their form and physical properties. While attempting to navigate the room, you would likely come into contact with the people and objects within it. Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they don't exist but in the darkness, there's nothing to draw or paint. To be able to see the objects in occupants of the room in order to draw and paint them, we need light. Now, imagine lighting a single candle in this room. Light would begin streaming out from the flame of the candle in all directions, illuminating any surface directly in its path. The objects closest to the candle would appear brightest. The objects further away would appear dimmer. Any surface not directly in the path of the candle's light, either because it was facing away from the light or blocked by another object would remain in darkness. The location, color, and intensity of the candle's light determine everything we see and don't see in this image. What this means is that when we draw and paint, we are not drawing and painting the objects themselves, instead, we are drawing and painting the impact of light on these objects. Light and shadow are the critical elements that will allow us to describe all of the form and volume of our subjects. The look and feel of everything you draw on paint will be determined by its interaction with light. For centuries, artists have understood that light coming from a single light source best describes form and volume. In painting after painting and drawing after drawing, we see light shining diagonally down on the subject. The light may come from the right or the left, but it is almost always coming from a single light source that is coming from above off to one side and from the front. With the subject positioned this way in the light, you can see that two-thirds to three-quarters of the subject is in the light, while one-third to one-quarter of the subject is in shadow. This creates a dramatic and descriptive lighting scheme and one that you're going to learn how to create and draw in this course. You'll see this lighting scheme used over and over again, on both single subjects, like the portrait of an individual, as well as for more complex compositions containing multiple subjects. Historically, a single light source was achieved by controlling and directing natural light through a window. Many artists still use this technique. But to give us more control over our light source, I'll be doing all lighting demonstrations using a lamp that I can easily move around our drawing subjects to create different lighting effects. This is a simple diagram of a sphere sitting on a table lit by a single light source. Just like we saw in the masterworks shown earlier, the light source is positioned not only to the side, but above the object, shining light downward and diagonally onto the sphere. The light sources shown shining down on the object from a 45-degree angle. But of course, depending on the lighting effect that you're looking for, you can move the light source so that it's shining down on your subject from further above or more off to the side. We'll talk more about reasons you might want to do this and the impact that changing the direction of the light source will have on your subject later on in this series. But for now, it's just important that you understand that there's a range of positions you can put your light source in and achieve dramatic lighting that will showcase the form and volume of your subject. Now let's take a look at the same lighting setup from above. From a bird's-eye view, we can clearly see that the light once again, isn't just coming directly from the side, but it's coming from a diagonal. It's positioned at about a 45-degree angle to the right of the subject. Just like before, there are a range of positions you can place your light source that will change the direction, but maintain dramatic and descriptive lighting. By placing your light source within this range of positions in relationship to the subject, you will achieve the lighting scenario that truly showcases the form in volume of your subject. Now before you learn to render objects using light and shadow, you need to learn about value. Value is the degree of relative lightness or darkness of a color. In this course will just be addressing value through black and white, but it's important to note that everything you're going to learn in this course is a prerequisite to learning how color works. You can't understand color without first understanding light. The best way to start learning about lightened value is to make a value scale. To do a value scale on white paper, you'll just need a few things: a pencil, an eraser, a ruler, and of course a white sheet of paper. In today's demonstrations, you'll see me using a black colored pencil and a kneaded eraser. The value scale will be working with has five steps. First I'll draw the five boxes for our value scale. The exact size and shape of these boxes isn't important, you'll want to make them roughly the size you see me demonstrating here. Also, it's not important that each box is exactly the same size, just do your best to get it as close as possible. Once you've drawn your five boxes that are all approximately the same size and shape, we're ready to begin experimenting with value. The first value I'm going to draw will be the darkest value. In the far left box, I'll begin drawing as dark as I can. Because I'm bearing down on the tip of the pencil, I'll use the tripod grip, this allows me to focus all of the weight on the tip of the pencil and minimizes the possibility that the lead will break. This darkest value is the only value you'll see me using the tripod grip with. All other values will be done using the overhand grip. I'm trying to fill in the box as evenly and as dark as possible. To do this, I'll go over the value multiple times, each time changing the direction of the pencil strokes. The result should be a dark and even value. We'll refer to this darkest value as our number 5 value. This number 5 value will be the only time that we bear down completely on the pencil, and push it to its darkest limits. It's important to remember that whether you're using white paper or toned paper, your paper will always be one of your values. Because we're using white paper and white is the lightest possible value, our paper will stand in for our number 1 value. No drawing of the number 1 value is required, we'll just let the white of the paper shine through and establish our lightest light. Now that we have our darkest dark, our number 5 value and our lightest light our number 1 value, we're ready to begin filling in the middle values. I am going to begin with the number 3 value. Here you'll see me switch to the overhand grip. You can see that this grip engages the side of the pencil instead of the tip. This allows me to lay in a soft wash of value. Later in this course, we'll explore different ways of laying down value but for now, I'm going to recommend using this wash technique with a pencil. This technique is also referred to as graining, because it exposes the grain of the paper. Just like before, you'll see me make a number of passes over the value, darkening it each time and switching the direction of the stroke each time. One of the important things to remember while working with value, is that you'll rarely get it right the first time. You should expect to make a number of passes before the desired value is achieved. While starting your value scale, I would recommend leaving your values a little lighter than you think they should be. The reason is that we'll be making adjustments all the way through the values scale and it's much easier to darken a value, than it is to lighten it. Although you can lighten a value with an eraser, it tends to smear it around or lift it unevenly, so you'll want to do your best to avoid lightning a value with an eraser. Even though I know that I'll most likely have to darken our number 3 value before the value scale is finished, I'm going to move on to value number 4. Once again, you'll see me using the side of the pencil to lay down and even wash a value. I'll be pressing harder than with the number 3 value, but not as hard as I pressed with the number 5 value. Once again, I'll leave the number 4 value slightly lighter than I think it needs to be, so that I can make any necessary adjustments later on in the process. Next, I'll move on to the number 2 value, all it needs is a light even wash of value. When you're making your own value scale, I want you to pay attention to what it feels like to make each value. Pay particular attention to how much pressure you are using when making each different value. Now that we've made our first attempt at all five values, you can see the value scales starting to come together. Now it's time for refinement. The goal of the value scale is that there's an even transition between each step. There shouldn't appear to be any jumps in the scale. For example, take a look at the number 1 and 2 values. If you squint your eyes, you can barely see a difference between them. Compare the transition between values number 1 and 2, to the transition between values number 4 and 5. Try comparing these values with your eyes, squinted or out-of-focus. Hopefully you can see that the jump between values 4 and 5, is much greater than the jump between values 1 and 2. This means that the jump between the number 1 and 2 values isn't great enough and the number 2 value should be darkened, since we cannot lighten the number 1 value. I'll continue making adjustments to my value scale until the jump from one value to the next seems even among all values. It'll take some time for you to become sensitive to these shifts in value but a value scale is the perfect way to practice and sensitize your eyes and hand to these shifts. Now that I'm reasonably satisfied with my value scale, you're going to see me practice making each value underneath its corresponding box. It's critical that you become skilled at being able to make any of these values on command. You want to get the necessary pressure to make each individual value ingrained deeply into your muscle memory. Also, you'll notice that the washes I'm making underneath my value scale, are going from dark to light. Underneath the five, I'm starting off with the number 5 value, but transitioning to a number 4. Under the number 4, I'm going from four to three. These smooth transitions from one value to the next are called gradations, and there'll be a critical component to your shading practice later on in the process. During your practice today, I'm going to encourage you to make these values over and over again. The goal is that before we begin applying them in drawings, they become second nature to you. Next, you'll see me go through the same process of making a value scale, but this time on toned paper. To do this, I'll by using: a gray piece of paper, a ruler, a black pencil, a kneaded eraser, and a white pencil. The idea behind drawing on tone paper is that the paper provides a neutral value. We, as artists get to draw both the shadow and the light. The result is striking and dramatic. By making drawings on both white paper and toned paper, you'll get a much better understanding of how light and shadow work. The value scale process is largely the same, except of course, that we actually get to draw in the white of the number 1 value. The darkest dark will be made by bearing down on the black pencil in the number 5 box, and our lightest value will be made by bearing down on the white pencil in the number 1 box. It's important to remember that your paper will still be one of your values. You'll be able to find both dark-gray and light-gray papers. I am using a lighter gray that is roughly my number 2 value. During your practice today, you may not be using the exact same value of paper that I'm using. This is a great opportunity to get a sense of what value your paper might be. To help you figure this out, compare the value of the paper to the value scale you did on white paper. Whichever value box your paper is closest to, you'll want to leave that number blank on the value scale made on your gray paper. It may need to be adjusted later on, by adding either white pencil or black pencil. But once you have a rough idea of which number your paper is going to stand in for, you can begin shading in your value scale. After making a number of refinements, I still think that the jump between values number 1 and 2 is too great, and the jump between values number 2 and 3 is too small. To fix this, I'll add a small amount of white pencil into the number 2 value box. Whatever gray paper you're using will likely need adjustments, but it may not be the same kinds of adjustments you're seeing me make on my gray paper. Again, this is a great opportunity to sensitize your eyes and mind to the differences between values. Once again, once I'm satisfied with my value scale, I'll begin practicing laying down the various number of value washes. Here's your project for today. Just like you saw it demonstrated, you are going to create two value scales. Each of your value scales is going to be five steps. One of your value scales is going to be done on white paper using a black pencil and the other value scale is going to be done on gray paper using a black and white pencil. I would encourage you to watch today's demonstration as many times as you need to get a good understanding of what you should be doing for practice. Once you're happy with your value scale, I want you to practice making each individual value. You want to practice each step of the value scale until it is ingrained in your muscle memory. If you want to draw a number 4 value, you don't have to compare it back to a value scale, you know what it feels like and looks like to put down that value. For this part of the practice, you should have a number of pages of simply laying down these basic value washes. Once you're comfortable making values one through five on both gray and white paper, you're ready to watch the next lesson. Well, I hope you enjoy your project today and I will see you back here in the next lesson when you're going to learn about how light actually operates on our basic volumes.
4. The Line of Termination: Today, you're going to learn the first step of the shading process. A well shaded drawing keeps a clear division between lights and darks. The boundary that divides the light and dark is called the line of termination. It's called this, because it marks the exact moment that the light terminates or ends and shadow begins. The line of termination goes by many names. You may hear some people refer to it as the terminator. You may hear other people refer to it as the turning edge or when the form turns away from the light. You may even hear it referred to as the bed bug line. But all of these terms are referring to the same thing. The moment where the light ends and the shadow begins. Before we get into the line of termination, there is one thing I want to address. I want to make sure that you're ready to learn to shade. This course focuses on shading, which means that we're assuming that you have some basic drawing skills and you're able to get basic volumes down on the page. Before beginning the shading process, you want to already be comfortable withdrawing cubes, spheres, and cylinders correctly, in perspective. If for any reason this is still a challenge for you, I would highly recommend taking the form and space section of the art and science of drawing. If you're a complete beginner, I would highly encourage you to start the art and science of drawing series from the beginning with a basic skill section and work your way back up to shading. So if you're comfortable getting basic forms of volumes down on the page, you're ready to start the shading process. Let's take a look at some general lighting conditions. Before we begin looking at how light interacts with volumes, we need to differentiate between form shadows and cast shadows. A form shadow is any shadow condition that occurs on the object itself. Whereas a cast shadow is the shadow created by the form blocking the light from hitting and adjacent surface. With that in mind, let's take a look at how light impacts the appearance of basic volumes, starting with the cube. The first skill you'll need to learn is how to analyze what direction the light is coming from. We can see three planes of this cube. Each plane has a different amount of light falling on it. When analyzing the light falling on a cube, the first question is, which plane is getting the most light? Hopefully, you can see that the right plane is getting the most light. The plane on the left side of the cube is not catching any of the light directly and is therefore in shadow, while the top plane is getting some light but the light isn't hitting the cube as directly on the top, which means it's not as light as the lit plane on the right, but it's also not in shadow, which means that it's not as dark as the plane on the left. Now, watch what happens when we raise the light. With the light coming now more from above than from the side, you can clearly see that the top plane is now getting the most light. Next, I'd like to bring your attention to the shadow cast by the cube on the left. As I move the light back down to where it was before, you'll notice that the cast shadow gets longer. We'll talk much more about casts shadows in the next lesson. But for now, I just want you to get a sense that the direction the light is coming from not only impacts how the light falls on the form itself, but it also impacts the cast shadow. I'm going to raise the light up once again, so that you can observe the cast shadow getting shorter and the top plane getting lighter. It's important to remember, that the cube itself hasn't changed and the outline in inner contours of the cube would be the same regardless of what kind of light we put on it. But the direction of the light dramatically impacts the values of each plane and also the size and shape of the cast shadow. Now watch what happens, when I positioned the light, so it's shining on the cube directly from the front. Under this unfortunate lighting scheme, all planes of the cube are the same value. There's almost to know casts shadow visible, and there's no opportunity for dynamic contrast, because there are no extreme lights or darks. You'll generally want to avoid this lighting in your drawings and paintings. Next, let's take a look at the sphere. Once again, the light is coming from the right, so the right side of this sphere is lit. The light is also coming more from the front, which means that from our point of view, we see more light on this sphere than shadow. Now watch, as I once again, move the light up. Once again, you can see the cast shadow shortening and just like on the cube, the top of this sphere now appears more lead than the side. Now watch as I move the light back down, you can see the cast shadow once again lengthening and the lit part of the sphere, moving more towards the side rather than the top. Now watch what happens, when I move the light completely to the side, so that the direction the light is falling on the sphere is exactly perpendicular from our line of sight. You can see now, that the cast shadow is moving exactly horizontal from the sphere, instead of angling back as it does when the light is coming more from the front. You can also see that when we position the light coming directly from the side, we could exactly half of the sphere in light and half in shadow. Now, keep your eye on the cast shadow as I once again, move the light back to its original position, you'll see it go from moving horizontally across the screen to appearing to angle upward. You're going to spend the entire rest of this course learning about every lightened shadow condition you've seen demonstrated here, as well as many others. By the end, you'll have a deep understanding of the logic of light, as well as how to draw all of these conditions. But for now, I just want you to get a sense of how changing the position of the light will dramatically alter the light and shadow conditions on our volumes. To help us understand the division between light and shadow, let's start with a cube. You'll notice that each of the three planes are different values, but only the side plane on the left is in shadow. When looking at a lighting condition like this in the studio, students will often ask, if the top plane is also in shadow because it is darker than the plane on the right? The answer is no. To understand why, we need to take a look at the direction the light is coming from. One way to figure this out, is by looking at the cast shadow. Even though the cast shadow has a diffused edge, let's trace a line around the most dense and dark shape of the cast shadow. Now let's imagine a line going from the corner of the cast shadow, to the corresponding corner on the cube. If we were to follow this line, it would lead us right back to the light source, thereby establishing the direction of the light. Although the light is coming slightly from above, we can see that it's more coming from the side. Therefore, the right side of the cube is getting more light than the top. But the top plane of the cube is still in the direct path of the light. It's just not getting it quite as directly as the side plane. But the plane on the left side of the cube is facing completely away from the light and is left in shadow. It is not getting hit with any light directly. Now watch as we raise the light source upward. You can see, that with the light coming more from above, the top plane of the cube gets brighter, both at top plane and the plane on the right are being hit with the light with a similar level of directness. But you'll notice that the left side of the cube is still not getting hit with any light directly and remains in shadow. Now let's move the light back down. So even though all three planes of the cube are different values in each lighting scenario, any plane that's getting hit with light directly is in the light and only planes not getting hit with direct light, we would consider to be in shadow. The first step of the shading process is to find the line of termination which separates light from shadow. On a cube the line of termination is pretty straight forward. It occurs on the sharp edges created where the planes meet. Let's take a look at the sphere. You'll notice that unlike the cube, the sphere, has no hard edge that divides the light from shadow instead, we find a gradation or a soft edge to transition between the light and shadow. Nevertheless, we can still identify the moment that the surface of this sphere curves away from the light. To see why and how this happens, let's once again find the direction the light is coming from by imagining a line going from the furthest edge of the cast shadow to the edge of the sphere. When we do this, you can clearly see that the line of termination begins at the tangent or the point on the curve of the sphere that comes into contact with a directional light line. Now watch what happens when we project a line that is perpendicular to the direction of the light. This will give us the other end of the line of termination. Regardless of how curved the line of termination is, you need to find the axis between the two ends of it. You should note that regardless of how close the line of termination is to the side of the sphere, or how curved it is, the axis line between the two ends of the line of termination will approximately bisect the sphere. It's also important to note that the shadow sides of all of these objects are not uniformly dark. On the shadowed side of the line of termination of this sphere, you can see that it's much darker at the top and gets lighter near the bottom, but remember, the line of termination is separating the parts of the objects that are getting hit directly with light and the parts of the object that are not. Even though this part of the shadow gets lighter near the bottom of the sphere, it is still not getting hit with light directly and is therefore considered part of the shadow. One strategy for simplifying shadows that you should use regularly is squinting your eyes or allowing them to go softly out of focus. Try this right now while looking at this image. Hopefully, this will allow you to see the values or simply into more easily identify the line of termination. The reason this works is that when our eyes are in focus we tend to see details, but when we unfocus our eyes, we can ignore the details and are better able to identify the broader patterns. Let's try this strategy again, this time to find the line of termination on the cylinder. With your eyes squinted or out of focus, try and identify the exact moment that the curving surface of the cylinder turns away from the light source. It's important to remember that unlike the cube, the line of termination we find on rounded forums will be soft edged. Nevertheless, we can still identify the moment where the form turns away from the light source. Next, let's put this knowledge into practice and take a look at how to actually draw the line of termination. Drawing the line of termination it's easiest on the Cube. By simply drawing the object itself, you've already drawn the line of termination. We just need to identify which plane is in shadow. Next, you'll see me place a light wash of value in the shadow plane. The value I'm drawing is roughly at number three from the five-step value scale that we made during the previous session. This is all you're going to be doing during your demonstration today before you learn more complex shading techniques, it's critical that you master the skill of finding and drawing the line of termination, which will separate your lights from your shadows. To draw the line of termination on a sphere once you've got your basic shape drawn, you first need to find the axis of the line of termination. Remember, the axis line is the line between the two points of the line of termination, where they come into contact with the contour of the sphere. Once you found it, you can use a soft line to draw in the line of termination. You'll want to pay close attention to how curved the line is, as well as how close it is to either side of the sphere. It's important to note that even though we only see part of the ellipse that makes up the line of termination, I'm actually making the motion of drawing an entire ellipse and only darkening the left side. This will ensure that the line of termination is evenly curved and accurately drawn. Also It's critical that the two ends of the line of termination gently curve into the contour of the sphere. Once I'm happy with the line of termination, I'll once again lay in a light wash of value at roughly in number three, thereby separating the light side of the sphere from the shadow side. Finally, we'll find the line of termination on the cylinder. Once I've drawn the basic volume I'll use my pencil to find the axis and placement of the line of termination, paying particular attention to which side of the cylinder it's closest to, and the general ratio between the lit side and the shadow side. For example, on this cylinder, you can see that the line of termination does not divide the shaft of this cylinder directly in half. We can see that the line of termination is slightly closer to the bottom of the cylinder than the top. Because the surface of this cylinder is curving just like we did with the sphere, we will use a softer line to establish the line of termination. Finally, in the shadow side, I'll lay down a number three value wash. Learning to separate light from shadow is a critical first step and must be mastered before you attempt more subtle and sophisticated shading techniques. Even complex subjects like the figure which require a subtle and sophisticated shading strategy, keep a clear separation between light and shadow. By dividing light and shadow using the line of termination, you'll be able to capture all of the nuances and subtleties of light and shadow, while still keeping a traumatic and powerful lighting scheme with shimmering lights and rich dark. Now you're ready for today's project. What I want you to do is find a sphere, a cube, and a cylinder. If you're having trouble finding wooden volumes like you see me using, you can find other objects to stand in for them, for example, for a sphere, you could use a ball or round orange, for a cylinder you could use a cup or a paper towel roll and for a cube, you can simply use a box of any dimension. It doesn't have to be a perfect cube. For today's project, you're going to be lighting your own objects. You'll want to get your hands on a light of some kind. Even something as simple as a desk light with a single bulb and it will work great, but you want to make sure that it's a single light source that you can position easily and project the light down onto your subject. You don't need a fancy light made for other photography. You just need a simple directional desk lamp. If for any reason you're having trouble finding any or all of these objects, you're more than welcome to draw from the images that you see me using in this series. However, I would highly recommend getting used to lighting your own subjects and whenever you can draw from life, I would highly encourage you to do so. Once you've got your objects and your light, or once you're ready to draw from the images from this video, you're ready to begin your actual drawing practice. Assuming you've got your hands on some physical objects and a light, the first thing I want you to do is just practice lighting your subjects. See what happens when you move the light higher or lower, more to the front or more from behind. You want to start to experiment and observe the effects of light on an object and see what happens when you move the light around to see how it changes the appearance. Once you're ready, I want you to do a simple drawing of each of your objects. Each drawing should be lit with a single light source and all you're doing is blocking in a light foundation of your basic objects and then laying in the line of termination. Once you've drawn your line of termination on each of your objects, go ahead and lay a light wash of value, filling in the shadow side of the object. Now remember this is just the first step of the shading process. You should only be using a single light value here. You're going to learn how to do more detailed and dramatic shaded drawings later on, but for now we want to keep it simple. You're not doing a fully shaded in render drawing. One thing to keep in mind when you're lighting and drawing from your objects, you want to make sure there's enough ambient light in the room so that you can see what you're drawing, but not so much light in the room where you can't see the dramatic lighting conditions on the object. As long as you can see both what you're drawing on your page and a clear line of termination, that should be a good balance. Remember, I'm giving you the bare minimum amount of practice if you really want to get good at this, try drawing each object two, three or even four times. Each time you can change the position of the light. Remember the more you practice the better you're going to get and if you're just watching these videos without practicing, you cannot learn to draw. Drawing requires a dedicated amount of practice. Well, good luck with today's project. I will see you back here for the next lesson when you're going to learn how to draw cast shadows.
5. The Cast Shadow: Today we're going to focus on cast shadows. A cast shadow is created when an object blocks light from hitting an adjacent surface. When that happens, the part of the surface that the light cannot reach is left in shadow. Now, from here on out, we're going to focus on three different elements for every shadow condition we study. The first element is shape. Every shadow condition has a shape. Even when the edges of a shadow condition are diffused, we can still discern a shape of that shadow. The second element is value. Every shadow condition has a value. Remember, we are using a five-step value scale and values five, four and three are our shadow values. One of the first things we're going to do whenever we decide to draw a shadow is figure out where on the value scale it lands. Thirdly, we're going to look at the edges of shadows. Some of the edges of shadows will be nice and crisp and easy to define, but the edges of other shadow conditions can be diffused. We want to make sure that we get the accurate level of diffusion in the edges of our drawings. Now, before we begin today's demonstrations, there's one other thing I'd like to address. Right now, I'm doing my drawing demonstrations on gray paper, not white paper. But it's important for you to know that the shading process whether you're doing it on gray paper or white paper is exactly the same until we get to the lit side of the line of termination. If you're using white paper for your practice at home, that is completely fine. Everything you're seeing me do on the gray paper is still relevant for white paper. Let's get today's lesson started by taking a look at cast shadow shapes. To understand how to draw a cast shadow, we first need to understand its shape. When the sphere is lit by a single light source, its cast shadow will be an oval. By lowering the light source, we can increase the length of the oval and by lifting the light source, we can shorten the cast shadow. This is important to remember especially if you're lighting your own subjects. The length of the cast shadow is determined by the height of the light source. But regardless of how long or short the cast shadow is, it will always remain an oval. Next, let's take a look at the direction of the cast shadow. You can see here that the axis for the cast shadow is angling upward as it goes back. If we move the light source further to the front of the object, the cast shadow seems to travel back at an even greater angle. By moving the light source more to the side, the cast shadow gets closer to a horizontal axis. We know that regardless of the location of the light source, the cast shadow of a sphere is always going to be an oval. Before we can draw it, we must determine its length and its axis. One of the best ways to determine the length of the cast shadow is by measuring the angle that goes between the tip of the cast shadow and the top of the sphere. For more information on measuring angles, please watch the measuring and proportion section of the art and science of drawing series. Next, let's take a look at the cast shadow of a cube. Because the cube is a rectilinear shape, the shadow cast by the cube is made up of straight lines and angles. We can find the length of this cast shadow by measuring the angle between the furthest tip of the cast shadow and the top left corner of the cube. It is of course this corner that is responsible for the angle at the tip of the cast shadow. We can use the same measuring technique to locate any of the corners we see on the cast shadow, just like we saw on the sphere. You can see that the cast shadow of the cube is angling up as it goes back because the cast shadow of the cube is made of straight lines and angles. The best way to draw it is by measuring each of the angles. Finally, let's take a look at the cylinder. Depending on the position of the cylinder and the position of the light source, the cast shadow of the cylinder can contain both curved and straight lines. Here we can see that this cylinder is casting a shadow with curved lines at both the right and left sides, connected with a straight angled line in the middle. Just like with our other objects, we can figure out the length of the cast shadow by measuring the angle going from the tip of the cast shadow to the top edge of the object. So even though cast shadows have diffused soft edges, we can still discern a specific shape that is derived from the shape of the object casting the shadow as well as the position of the light source. When you're learning to shade, the shape of the cast shadow should be constructed just as carefully as the shape of the object itself. Once we have an understanding of the shape of the cast shadow, we can start to take a look at its values. The first thing to note is that the cast shadow is not uniformly dark. You can see that the cast shadow is darkest right underneath the sphere where the sphere comes in contact with the ground plane. This darkest part of the cast shadow is called the occlusion shadow. It is the part of the cast shadow where light is blocked completely from hitting the ground plane. In today's demonstration, you'll see that the occlusion shadow is the only place that I use the number 5 value, the darkest possible value on our five-step value scale. But as the cast shadow travels away from the sphere itself, more ambient light from the spheres surroundings began to lighten the cast shadow. This means that the cast shadow value shifts from a number 5 at the occlusion shadow right underneath the object to a number 4 at the far edge of the cast shadow. It's important to note that because more of the underside of this sphere is exposed as it curves underneath, the occlusion shadow of the sphere appears larger than it appears on either the cube or the cylinder. Nevertheless, we can still see this shadow pattern occurring in the cast shadows of both the cube and the cylinder. At the base of the cube where the cube comes in contact with the ground plane, you can clearly see the number 5 value. At the edge of the cast shadow, you can clearly see that it is lightened significantly to a number 4 value. Once again, on the cylinder, you can observe the same phenomenon. By transitioning the cast shadow from a number 5 value to a number 4, your drawings will have a greater sense of realism and complexity. Now let's take a look at the edges of the cast shadow. The edges of shadows are one of the most overlooked elements of drawing and painting. But when doing a drawing of a dramatically lit subject, capturing the changes of the edges of shadows can make all the difference in the believability and drama of your drawing. First, I'd like to direct your attention to the part of the cast shadow that is directly underneath the bottom of the sphere. Not only is the cast shadow incredibly dark here, it also has a hard edge. Now, using your eyes, follow the bottom edge of the cast shadow to the left. As the cast shadow gets further away from the subject and as it begins to lighten toward a number 4 value, you can also see that the edge softens. Hopefully, you can see that the far left edge of the cast shadow is incredibly diffused. This diffused edge of the cast shadow is called the penumbra. It's important to note here that how defused the penumbra of your cast shadow is, depends on the type of light source and how far it is from the object. In these demonstrations, I'm using a synthetic light source that radiates light outward from a single point. It's also fairly close to the subject. These two things combined create a softer cast shadow edge. The softened penumbra will occur regardless of the shape of the object casting the shadow. However, if you're drawing objects outside in direct sunlight, the cast shadow edge will appear more uniformly firm. This is due to the fact that the sun's rays hit the Earth in parallel lines. But regardless of what kind of lighting condition you're using to draw, you should always investigate the quality of the edges of the cast shadow. We'll start today's drawing demonstration where we left off from the previous lesson. You can see here that I've already established the basic shape of the sphere, which is a circle, drawn in the line of termination and laid in roughly a number 3 value separating the light from the shadow. Now, I can begin to draw the cast shadow before drawing any value. I'll first establish the shape of the cast shadow. Remember, the shape of the cast shadow should be constructed as carefully as the shape of the object itself. I'll begin by establishing the axis of the cast shadow. Once I've lightly drawn in the axis, I need to figure out how long the cast shadow is. One of the best ways to do this is to take an angle side from the top of the sphere to the furthest tip of the cast shadow, which should of course, beyond the axis line you've already drawn. I also want to mark where on the contour of the sphere the cast shadow comes in contact with. First, on the left side of the sphere and finally, on the bottom right. Now that I know the size, axis, and placement of the cast shadow, I'm ready to draw the oval. If for any reason, figuring out the size, axis, and placement of basic shapes is still a challenge for you, I would highly recommend going back to the Basic Skill section of the Art and Science of Drawing series. You'll notice that instead of simply tracing the contour of the visible part of the cast shadow, I'm drawing the complete oval. This ensures that the cast shadow will be the right shape. You'll also notice that I've used a soft line to draw the edge of the cast shadow. Once I'm satisfied with the size, placement, and shape of the cast shadow, I'm ready to add value. When you're shading, your goal shouldn't be to get the exact right value on your first attempt. The shading process usually happens in layers. Remember, it's much easier to darken a value than it is to lighten one. So particularly while you're learning, it can be useful to start with a lighter value then you know that you'll need, and to darken values as needed. From the very beginning of shading the cast shadow, you'll want to keep in mind that the further the cast shadow gets from the sphere, the softer the edges will become and the lighter the value will become. As I'm adding the occlusion shadow, you'll notice that I'm using the tripod grip. The tripod grip, which is normally used for writing, is the best grip when you want to bear down on the tip of the pencil and push it to its darkest limits. Remember, the occlusion shadow is the only place we will use the number 5 value. You'll notice that when I approach the left side of the cast shadow, I switch back over to the overhand grip. The overhand grip allows me to engage the side of the pencil and draw with this softer line. At this point in the drawing, it's not important that we fully resolve the cast shadow, but I would advise making sure that you've established your darkest dark and have already began experimenting with the edges of the cast shadow. Later on in this course, you'll learn how to fully resolve a shaded and render drawing. But for now, I just want you to get some practice drawing in the basic shape, values, and edges of the cast shadow. Now, whereas the cast shadow of a sphere will always be an oval, the cast shadow of a cube can vary greatly in the specifics of its shape. To establish the shape of the cast shadow of a cube, I'll construct it line by line using the angle citing technique. Remember, we're assuming in this course that you've got your basic drawing skills down. For more information on angle citing, please review the measuring and proportion section of the art and science of drawing series. While beginning to add value to the cast shadow of the cube, you'll notice that I'm starting with the number 5 value at the occlusion shadow. It's important to remember that there's no single right way to engage in any of these drawing practices. I would encourage you to experiment with the drawing process, to figure out the process that works best for you. Once again, you'll see me switch over to the overhand grip to draw the soft edges on the left side of the cast shadow. Another technique for producing soft light edges is a variation of the tripod grip. Instead of holding the pencil near the tip, you can hold it further back. By building up a number of light strokes, you can once again, achieve soft edges. Finally, you'll see me construct the cast shadow shape for the cylinder. Just like the cylinder itself, the cast shadow is made up of two curved lines connected by a straight line. Once the shape of the cast shadow has been established, I'll once again go through the same process of adding value, moving from the number 5 value at the occlusion shadow, to a number 4 value at the penumbra. Once again, this is not the time to capture every nuance and detail of the cast shadow. Later on, once you've learned to address all shadow conditions, we can refine the drawing and add as many subtlety and details as we desire. But during today's project, I just want you to take your drawing about as far as you can see that I've taken mine. Learning to shade well takes discipline and patience and it's critical that you master each shading condition on its own before attempting to put them all together in a fully shaded and render drawing. For today's project, you're going to light and draw the same three objects that you use for the previous project. That is a sphere, a cylinder, and a cube. You're also going to go through the same steps that you did in the previous project. You're going to get a basic form on the page, you're going to draw the line of termination, and then you're going to add a light wash on value on the shadow side. Next, for each object, you're going to draw the cast shadow just as you saw it demonstrated today. You'll start off by drawing the shape of the cast shadow, then you'll start laying in value, paying particular attention to how light or dark any part of the cast shadow is and finally, you'll pay attention to the edges of the cast shadow. Remember, right underneath your objects, it's going to be much firmer and as you get further away from the object, the cast shadow edges are going to become more diffused and as always, if you want to get better at drawing faster, practice more. Remember, what we're teaching in this series are fundamentals. You cannot practice them too much. If you do decide to draw each of your objects more than once, remember, you can change the position of the light every time you do a new drawing, so it'll be a new experience. That's also a great way to familiarize yourself with how cast shadows change depending on the position of the light. Well, good luck with your project today and I hope to see you back for the next lesson when you're going to be introduced to core shadows.
6. The Core Shadow: Today we're going to focus on the core shadow. The core shadow is the darkest part of the form shadow. Remember, form shadows are shadows on the form itself as opposed to a cast shadow, which is cast by the form onto an adjacent surface. You learned about cast shadows in the previous lesson. Core shadows, which we're focusing on today, only occur on curved objects. This means that for today, we're not going to worry about the cube. We're only going to be focusing on spheres and cylinders, but before we introduce the core shadow, we need to learn about reflected light. In this lesson, we're focusing on the core shadow, but we don't get a core shadow without reflected light. To understand how reflected light works, let's take a look at the shadow side of the line of termination. You'll notice that it is not uniformly dark. It's much darker at the top than it is at the bottom. The reason is that when light strikes a surface, whether it's the object we're shining it on or the surface the object is sitting on, the light bounces off. This means that light shines down from the light source, hits the surface that the sphere is sitting on, then bounces back up, and lights the bottom of the sphere. Reflected light isn't as intense as direct light. You can clearly see that the area of reflected light on the sphere is not as bright as the part of the sphere getting hit with direct light. It's important to remember that the line of termination divides the part of the object that is getting hit with direct light from the part of the object that is not. This means that the area of reflected light is still considered a shadow condition because it is not getting hit with light directly. For there to be a reflected light on an object, there must be a nearby surface that reflects the light. Take a look at the bottom left of this cylinder. You can see a very small amount of reflected light that is caused by light bouncing off of the ground plane and lighting the very bottom of the cylinder. Now, keep your eyes on the left side of the cylinder as we place a cube next to it. Did you see the left side of the cylinder get brighter? Watch again as I remove the cube and then bring it back. The left side of the cylinder gets brighter because light comes down, hits the right plane of the cube, bounces off and lights the left side of the cylinder. Now watch what happens when we lay this cylinder on its side. Hopefully you can see that the bottom of the cylinder is lit by light bouncing off the surface that the cylinder is on. Earlier in this course, you learned about the line of termination, which separates the lit side of an object from the shadow side, but as we've just seen, the shadow section of a curved object is not uniformly dark. A portion of the shadow is lit by reflected light, but the part of the shadow that is not lit with reflected light remains darker. This darker region of shadow that is not lit by reflected light is called the core shadow. Before we take a look at the core shadow itself, there's one thing I'd like to address. Because form shadows have diffused edges, many students have trouble understanding how they can have a shape, but just because something has soft edges doesn't mean that we can't assign it a specific shape. For example, the shape on your screen right now has a definite hard edge. It is obviously a triangle. Now watch what happens when we diffuse the edges of the shape. Hopefully you can see that even with these incredibly soft and diffused edges, the shape is still clearly a triangle. The soft edges of this triangle are at about the same level of diffusion as the gradations between shadow conditions. Even though the boundary between shadows have soft edges, we can still assign them a specific shape. Let's put this idea into practice by figuring out the shape of the core shadow of a sphere. You'll remember that in order to simplify the core shadow into a basic shape, it can be helpful to evaluate shadows by squinting your eyes or letting them go softly out-of-focus. The core shadow of a sphere has three edges. The first edge should be obvious. It is simply the contour of the sphere itself. The second edge you've already learned about. It is the line of termination that separates the lit side of the sphere from the shadowed side. Finally, the third edge of the core shadow can be found where the core shadow transitions to the reflected light. Even though two out of the three edges of the core shadow are diffused, we can still simplify it into a shape that is essentially a curving triangle. There is another thing I'd like to point out about the core shadow. You can see that although the dark and triangular section of the core shadow is the most obvious, that the core shadow appears to have a second zone. Hopefully you can see that this curving band is slightly darker than the reflected light. Although this area of the core shadow isn't as prominent as the darker triangular section above it, it should still be included in your drawings. Let's remove the guidelines. With your eyes squinted or out-of-focus, hopefully you can still see the basic shape of the core shadow. It's important to note that the size and shape of the core shadow can change depending on the position of the light source and how much reflected light the sphere is getting. For example, watch what happens when we raise the light source so that the light is shining down on the sphere from further above. With your eyes squinted or out-of-focus, see if you can figure out the shape of this new core shadow on your own. Because the light is now positioned further above, the sphere is getting much more reflected light. This can narrow the core shadow, but the boundaries of the core shadow remain the same. The first is the edge of the sphere itself. The second is the line of termination. Remember, the axis of the line of termination will be perpendicular to the direction of the light source. The third boundary of the core shadow is the transition to the reflected light. It's important for you to note that the guidelines I'm placing over these images are approximations. The actual shape of the core shadow is soft edged, but hopefully these guidelines can help you see the basic shape of the core shadow despite its soft edges. Hopefully you're getting comfortable recognizing the general shape of the soft edged core shadow. I'd also like to note that you can still see this lighter second zone of the core shadow near the bottom right of the sphere. Next, let's take a look at the cylinder. We know that in order to get a core shadow, we need reflected light. When the cylinder is upright and no objects are near the shadowed side, it gets very little reflected light. Now there is a small amount of reflected light that is bouncing off the surface the cylinder is sitting on. This makes the bottom left of the cylinder slightly brighter than the top-left, but it's not enough reflected light to create a clear core shadow. The core shadow is most visible on a cylinder when the curved side of the cylinder is resting against a surface, in this case, the ground plane. Now we can make out both the line of termination and a clear transition from the core shadow to the reflected light. Under these conditions, the core shadow appears as a darker band, the edges of which are parallel to the edges of the cylinder itself. It's interesting to note that many artists, including myself, will draw a core shadow on any cylindrical forums, whether or not it's actually even visible on the object itself. This is a great way to help communicate the roundness of a cylindrical volume on the flat surface of the page. The value of the core shadow can change, depending upon the volume that is being lit, the position and intensity of the light source, and how much reflected light the volume is receiving. For example, the darkest part of the core shadow of the sphere shown here, is almost as dark as the occlusion shadow underneath the sphere. When we focus on the darkest part of the core shadow, we can see that it transitions from about a number 5 value to about a number 4 value. It's important to note, that these values are approximations. The five-step value scale is a way to simplify infinite number of values found on an actual subject. You'll learn how to refine your values later on in this course. But for now, it's critical that we find ways to simplify the shapes and values of our shadow conditions. Now take a look at the reflected light. The value of this area transitions from about a number 4 to about a number 3. Once again, it's important to remember that the subtleties and nuances of shadow will be addressed later. For now, we just need a general understanding of the organization of the values and their relationship to the value scale. If we move the light source up, you can see that the core shadow now seems to be closer to a number 4 value, which then transitions to about a number 3 value. The reflected light area, now seems to be closer to a number 3 value that transitions towards a number 2 value. A great way to compare values is to assume that the occlusion shadow, the darkest part of your shadow underneath the object, will be the only area that is a true number 5 value on this object. Hopefully, you can see that the core shadow at its darkest part is still not as dark as the occlusion shadow. Now compare the value of the core shadow of this sphere, which has the light coming more from above, to the value of the core shadow on this sphere, which has the light coming more from the side. Hopefully, you can see that not only is the core shadow of this sphere darker than the previous sphere, but also that the darkest part of the core shadow is about the same value as the occlusion shadow. Now let's practice this idea, while looking at the cylinder. Does the core shadow appear as dark as the occlusion shadow? Hopefully, your answer is no. This puts the core shadow at about a number 4 value and the reflected light at about a number 3 value. If this is a challenge for you to see, don't worry, the more practice you get comparing values to one another, the better you'll get at differentiating them and assigning them a place on the value scale. Other than the edge of the core shadow with the actual contour of the sphere. The two edges of the core shadow we need to address are the transition from the core shadow to the reflected light. The transition from the core shadow to the lit side of the object at the line of termination. Both of these edges are soft, but you can see on the sphere that the transition from the core shadow to the reflected light is softer edged than the transition at the line of termination. On a cylinder however, depending on its relationship to the light source, that difference in the core shadow edges can be harder to see. But hopefully, you can see that both transitions are soft edged. Now that you have an understanding of the shape of the core shadow, its value and the quality of its edges or ready to draw it. At this point, you should be pretty familiar with the first steps of the shading process. First, you get your basic form on the page, then you draw the line of termination. Next, you fill in the shadow side of the line of termination with a number 3 value wash. Then you draw the shape of the cast shadow. Next, you shade the cast shadow, making sure that it moves from a number 5 value at the occlusion shadow to a number 4 value at the penumbra. Now we're ready to draw the core shadow. Once you've gone through all of these initial shading steps, drawing the core shadow is pretty straightforward. Earlier in this lesson, you learned that you don't get a core shadow unless there is reflected light. The number 3 value wash on the shadow side of the line of termination is already at our reflected light value. Also, the line of termination is already serving as one side of the core shadow. To complete the general shape of the core shadow, all we need to do is draw in the transition from the core shadow to the reflected light. Remember, this line should be incredibly soft. It's just a guideline and should not be visible at the end of the drawing. Once we have the shape of the core shadow, it's time to darken it. Remember, it's much easier to darken a value then it is to lighten it. So I'll plan on making multiple passes over the core shadow as I darken it, you'll notice that I'm making soft lines using the overhand grip. The other benefit of making multiple passes is that as they've layer over one another, individual strokes appear to soften and blend into one another. We can tell by looking at the cast shadow and the axis of the line of termination, that the light source is coming mostly from the side. This means that without anything to the left of this sphere to reflect light, the darkest part of the core shadow will be almost as dark as the occlusion shadow. After making multiple passes over the core shadow, I'm ready to address the edges. Remember, that transition from the core shadow to the reflected light will be softer than the transition to the lit side of this sphere at the line of termination. You'll also notice that I've darkened the second zone of the core shadow, that runs along the bottom section of the line of termination. At this stage of the drawing, even without addressing the lit side of the line of termination, hopefully, you can start to see the illusion of a three-dimensional volume emerging on the page. Drawing the core shadow on the cylinder, should also be pretty straightforward. Remember, on a cylinder, the core shadow is just a dark, straight band that runs parallel to the edges of the shaft of the cylinder. All I need to do is dark in the band and adjust the edges, making sure that the transition from the core shadow to the reflected light is softer than the transition at the line of termination. Also, I'd like to remind you, that these exercises are just practice. Try not to think of these as rendered and completed drawings. You'll learn to refine and finish shaded drawings later on in this course. But for now, you're just getting some experience going through the shading steps, in grappling with the different shadow conditions. I'm sure you've noticed that during each of the last few lessons, I've added a new step to the shading process. The reason I'm breaking it up like this, rather than have you do a drawing of a fully shaded and rendered volume start to finish, is that the shading process is incredibly complicated. There are numerous light and shadow conditions that you have to understand in order to do a fully shaded in rendered drawing. By focusing on each shadow condition individually, you'll have an opportunity to understand and draw each shadow condition on its own before attempting to put all of them together. So for today's project, once again, I'm going to ask you to light and draw the sphere and this cylinder. Remember, core shadows don't occur on cubes. So for today, you don't have to worry about the cube. For each of your objects, you're going to go through the same set of steps that you went through for your projects from the previous two lessons. First, you'll get your basic volumes down on the page. Next, you'll draw the line of termination and add a number 3 wash of value. Then, you'll draw and shade the cast shadow. Finally, you'll draw the core shadow, just like you saw me, demonstrate today. Now instead of just adding a core shadow onto your drawings from the previous two sessions, I would encourage you that for each new project to start new drawings. I know this practice can seem repetitive, but remember, we're trying to get you so familiar with the steps of the shading process that they become second nature to you. The only way to do this is to practice them over and over again. Well, that being said, let's get you to your practice. Good luck with today's project, and I hope to see you back for the next lesson, when you're going to learn how to draw the lit side of objects.
7. Drawing With Light: Well congratulations, you've made it to the fifth day of the shading section of the art and science of drawing series. Today we're going to focus on the lit side of the line of termination. We're literally going to show you how to draw using light. Today we're going to focus on three different lighting conditions. The first and most prominent is called the highlight. The highlight will be the brightest light in your drawing and the only place you'll use pure white. The second is called the center light. The center light isn't quite as bright as the highlight, but it's the lit part of the object that is brighter nearest the light source and gets dimmer as it moves toward the line of termination. The third lighting condition is called the midtone. It's a final transitional area that occurs between the center light and the line of termination. It's the last area to get any direct light on the lit side of the line of termination. Today we're also going to show you how to finish a fully shaded and rendered drawing. Well, we have a lot to cover today, so let's get right to it. Before we get to the highlight, the center light and the Midtone, which only occur on round volumes. Let's start off by taking a look at how the planes of a cube are lit. We can see that both the top plane and the plane on the right are lit. The plane on the left is in shadow. First, let's just focus on the two lit planes of the cube. Even though light is falling on both of these planes, the light hitting the plane on the right is hitting it more directly so it appears brighter than the plane on top. When drawing the cube, the plane on the right should appear the brightest. I would say it's at approximately a number 2 value. I'd like you to note that other than some minor discoloration on the surface of the cube itself, the plane is a pretty even value. One of the common mistakes I see beginning drawers make while drawing the cube is shading the lit planes going from dark to light. For the most part, lit planes will be at an even value from front to back and side to side. You can see this on the top plane as well. Other than the minor discolorations on the surface of the plane, it's pretty much all one even value. This top plane, which is getting some light, but not as much as the plan on the right is about edit number 3 value. The only plane that should not have an even value is the shadow plane. You can see that the bottom left corner of the shadow plane is darker than the rest of the plane. The bottom left corner of this plane is about edit number 5 value, while the rest of it is closer to a number 4. Remember, the five-step value scale we're using is just an approximation, a way to simplify the values at the beginning of the drawing. Near the end of the drawing, we can deviate from the five-step value scale to capture the nuances of a form. But at the beginning of a drawing, simplifying the values makes it much easier to understand the light logic and the shading process. In our drawing demonstration of a lit cube, we left off with the form of the cube drawn in, the shadow plane lightly shaded at a number 3 value, and the cast shadow rendered. To complete the shading process, first, I'll finish shading the shadow plane of the cube. Just as you saw in our reference photo earlier, I'll shade the bottom-left corner of the cube at a number of five value and slightly lighten the value as I go up the plane. It's important to remember that the line of termination on a cube has a hard straight edge. With a shadow plane shaded, I can now move on to the lit planes. I've already established the darkest dark in the drawing in the occlusion shadow in the bottom-left corner of the shadowed plane. Next, I'll establish the lightest light by illuminating the plane on the right side of the cube with white pencil. Even though the plane on the right is the brightest part of the object, it is not as bright as a highlight. Therefore, I'm not going to bear down on the white pencil. The only time in these demonstrations you'll see me push the white pencil to its brightest limits is at the highlight that occurs on rounded forms. Now that we've established the darkest dark of the drawing as well as the lightest light, it'll be easier to figure out the value of the top plane. Right now the top plane seems to be too close in value to the lit plane on the right. So I'll apply a small amount of value evenly across it. It's important to remember that the light from the light source doesn't just strike the object itself. It also strikes the surface that the object is sitting upon. To finish this drawing, I've used the white pencil to add a small amount of light to the surface the cube is sitting upon. I've also refined the edges of the cube, as well as the gradations from light to dark in both the shadow plane and the cast shadow. Now let's take a look at the brightest value you'll use in your drawings, the number 1 value on the value scale and the only place that you'll push your white pencil to its limits, producing the brightest white you can. It's called the highlight. The highlight usually only occurs on rounded forms, like the sphere and the cylinder. The highlight is an actual reflection of the light source. This means that for a true highlight to be visible, the object must be semi-reflective. The more reflective the surface of the object is, the brighter the highlight. This wooden sphere is just reflective enough to get a subtle highlight. Just like the shadow conditions, the location of the highlight is dependent on the position of the light source. But there is an important difference. Even with the object and the light source stationary, the location of the highlight will actually change its position as you change your relationship to the object. This diagram shows a bird's-eye view of the viewer placed at the bottom of the screen looking toward a sphere sitting on the table with the light source to the right. The light source radiates light toward this sphere, and as you learned in the previous lesson once the light comes into contact with the sphere and the surface the sphere is sitting upon, the light bounces off and travels in a new direction. Photons strike and bounce off a surface in the same way that a billiard ball ricochets off the side of a pool table. When a photon hits the surface of a sphere, it bounces off at the equal and opposite direction. The location of the highlight is where photons strike the surface of this sphere and are reflected directly into your eyes. The location of the highlight is circled here in red. Even if the sphere and the light source stay in the exact same place, the location of the highlight will change if you change your position. Keep your eye on the location of the highlight in red as we change the position of the viewer, you can see that this changes the location where the light hits the surface of the sphere at the necessary angle to reflect it directly into the eyes of the viewer. With more than one viewer, each viewer would see the highlight in a different location. The location of the line of termination and the cast shadow are fixed and unmoving. Even if they appear different to viewers from different locations, their size, placement, and shape would not actually change. The highlight, on the other hand, actually moves around the object as the position of the viewer moves. In fact, even in a crowded room, each individual viewer would see the highlight at a slightly different location. In addition to the location of the highlight, its appearance can also change depending on the texture and reflectiveness of the surface of the object. For example, take a look at the highlight on the surface of the orange. The surface of the orange is more reflective than the surface of the wooden sphere we viewed earlier. It also has a pockmarked texture. These two characteristics together create a highlight that is brighter and more textured than the highlight on the wooden sphere. Next, let's take a look at a wooden cylinder. Even in direct light, you won't always see a highlight on a cylinder. There are two possible reasons for this. The first is that because a cylinder only curves in one direction as opposed to the sphere, which is curving in multiple directions, the relationship between the cylinder, the light source, and the viewer will not always create the set of angles necessary to reflect the light directly back into the viewers eyes. The second reason is that the surface of the cylinder may not be reflective enough to generate a visible highlight. Now let's take a look at this cylindrical metal canister. Because of the position of the canister in relationship to the light source in the viewer, as well as how reflective the surface is, we can see an extremely clear and bright highlight. It's also interesting to note how clearly you can also see the core shadow as well as the reflected light. The next lighting condition we're going to focus on is called the center light. Just like the core shadow and the highlight, the center light only occurs on rounded objects. The center light runs along the edge of a rounded form and it dims as it travels toward the line of termination. It's important to note that even at its brightest point, the center light is not as bright as the highlight. To get a sense of how the value of the center light changes, take a look at the light colored dot that I've placed along the brightest edge of the center light. Next, I'll place a dot near the line of termination that is the exact same color and value as the first dot. Hopefully you can see that even though in reality these dots are the exact same value, the one near the line of termination appears to be much brighter. This is because the light near the line of termination is much dimmer than the light at the upper edge of the shaft of the cylinder. We can observe the same phenomenon on the sphere. Once again, in actuality, both dots are the exact same color and value, but the dot near the line of termination appears much brighter because the surrounding value is much dimmer than the value at the edge of this sphere nearest the light source. It's important to remember that the highlight will be the only place in your drawing where you will use a number 1 value, which is of course, the brightest possible value. The center light is not as bright as a highlight, but it's also not as dim as the number 2 value. This means that the center light will roughly transition from a number 1.5 value at the edge to about a number 2 value as it nears the line of termination. There's one other value I'd like to address before we get to our drawing demonstration. As the center light dims and gets closer to the line of termination, we can see another value transition. The transitional area between the center light in the core shadow is called the mid tone. It is the last part of a curved surface that gets any direct light before the form turns away from the light and goes into shadow. Although technically the mid tone is on the lit side of the line of termination, the light hits it at such an indirect angle that it barely appears lit. It seems to hover between the stronger lighting conditions of the center light and highlight and the shadows. Now that you've been introduced to all of the essential lightened shadow conditions, let's complete the demonstration drawings we began earlier in this course by adding light. If you're drawing with white pencil on toned paper, I would highly recommend cleaning the area you're going to apply white pencil with an eraser. Even if it looks clean, there likely small amounts of pigment that have smudged or otherwise gotten into the area on the light side of the line of termination. White is an incredibly delicate color. Even the smallest amount of dark pigment left in the area you apply white pencil to, will dull the brightness of the white. Before placing the highlight, I'm going to draw in the center light. Remember, the center light is not pure white, so I won't be bearing down with a white pencil. I'll apply a light wash of white just enough to brighten the center light at the edge of the sphere. I'm being careful to make sure that there is less white pigment on the sphere the closer I get to the line of termination. I'm making sure to leave a band of the gray paper completely undrawn on for the mid tone. Finally, I can place the highlight. Remember, the highlight is the only place in the drawing where we will push the white pencil to its brightest limits by bearing down completely on the tip. Now I've addressed all of the light and shadow conditions, including the highlight, the center light, the mid tone, the core shadow, reflected light, and the cast shadow. With all of the essential values addressed, I can now set about refining the drawing. The benefit of having all of the shadow and light conditions drawn is that we can now compare the values to one another. For a fully shaded and render drawing to work, the drawing must be fine tuned. In this final stage of refinement, I'll compare each individual value to every other value in the drawing always asking myself if the particular value I'm looking at should be lighter or darker in relationship to the others. I'll also pay particular attention to the edges of values where they transition from one value to the next. By looking back and forth from my actual lit subject to the drawing, I'll be able to tell if edges need to be softened or hardened. To finish this drawing, I'll not only add white pencil on the object itself, but on the surface the object is sitting on. Hopefully, the resulting drawing will be a rich and dynamic record of volume depicted through light and shadow. In this drawing, the full range of values has been used from the darkest dark all the way up to the brightest light. If done properly, the sensation of volume light and shadow should hit you on an almost gut level. If we've captured all of the shapes, values, and edges properly, the image should have an undeniable feeling of form existing in light. The cylinder is a combination of rounded and planar forms. At each end of the cylinder, there is a flat plane. We know from studying the planes of the cube that for the most part, flat planes in the light will have an even value. Because this front plane of this cylinder is in the light, I will add white to it. We can also see the center light on the rounded shaft of the cylinder although this section of the cylinder is not nearly as bright as the front plane. Also, because of its position in the light, as well as its lack of reflective quality, we cannot see a highlight on this cylinder. One of the most essential skills of learning to shade is to look back and forth from your object to your drawing, constantly comparing what you see to what you've drawn, and of course, making any changes necessary. Now if you're drawing with a dark pencil on white paper, there's some minor adjustments you'll need to make on the lit side of the line of termination. Now the first steps of the drawing process where you're establishing the basic form and drawing the shadow conditions remain the same. But instead of drawing in a highlight with white pencil, as we did on toned paper, the white of the paper must be left undrawn on, and will stand in for your number 1 value. There are essentially two ways of achieving this. You can either carefully draw around the place where the highlight will be leaving the paper white, or you can draw over the entire lit side of the line of termination and then remove the pigment with an eraser. Anything that isn't as bright as the highlight, which will be most of the lit side of the line of termination, will need a small amount of pigment applied to it to knock it back from pure white. To truly get a sense of how light and shadow work, I would highly recommend drawing both on toned paper with black and white pencil and on white paper with a dark pencil. For today's project, I'm going to ask you to begin new drawings and go through the entire shading process so you can complete fully shaded and render drawings of your three basic volumes, the sphere, the cube, and the cylinder. I would strongly encourage you to draw all three volumes, both on white paper using a black pencil and on toned paper using a black and white pencil. I know the projects this week might seem a little repetitive, but it's critical that you be able to observe, analyze, and record all of the light and shadow conditions you've learned this week and get to know the shading process so well that it becomes second nature to you. If you're struggling to draw and shade these basic volumes, it'll be extremely difficult for you to move on to more complex forms. I really want you to get comfortable drawing basic volumes and when you're ready, you can move on to more complex forms. Well, good luck with today's project. I hope I've given you enough practice so that you can get comfortable shading these basic volumes.
Brent Eviston, Master Artist & Instructor
