Hi everyone, when you're getting started with painting,
it's a good idea to learn the basics of painting light and shadow
In this video here, I went over some of the essential values that lead to convincing light and shadow,
I was also on Proko's channel this month with a lesson on how the planes of the head feed into that knowledge.
Both of these lessons I consider pre-requisites to this one
so please check them out when you have the time :)
So this is the painting I did in that other video I just mentioned.
She's lit by a single, direct light source - causing big areas of light and shadow.
But for an alternate type of feel, you might choose to light your subject entirely in shadow!
Now, I consider painting this type of light to be more advanced, for a couple of reasons.
First, when painting in shadow only, you usually have a much more limited value range to work within.
Secondly, the reduced value range makes for more subtle transitions between elements.
Here's a piece of photo ref
I'll sample some values in an area containing the brow, eyebrow, eye socket, and eye.
And look how close everything is!
Those are separate elements of the head I just sampled,
but they're linked in value, because they're all lit in shadow.
The type of light we see in shadow is called ambient light.
It's a diffuse, or soft, light. Which is the opposite of a more harsh, direct light - like the sun.
The consistent direction of a direct light forces a division between light and shadow.
This is what we saw in this painting.
Very clear families; there's a high value contrast between them.
Ambient light rays, on the other hand, are more scattered.
This diagram illustrates ambient light coming downward, say, from the sky.
Our object has the lightest values at the top, where it's most exposed to the sky.
As it turns away from the sky there's a gradual darkening.
This type of soft gradation, without obvious light and shadow families,
is typical of objects lit by ambient light.
There are other sources of ambience too. Let's go back to our direct light for a moment.
And have some objects fly into the scene...
In this case, direct light bounces off other objects and becomes diffuse.
Here's the shadow without other objects influencing it...
and I'll bring back the other objects, and we see more of a range.
Think of other objects as being like 'light relayers.'
Ambient light appears soft (diffuse) because the direction all these runners are running can be different!
OK check this out. The major physical difference between a direct light and a diffuse light, is the size of the light relactive to the scene
In this rendering, I have a relatively small light positioned above the box.
Its light rays come from a small point in space, so they're gonna be pretty limited as to what they can hit directly.
But, when I scale up the size of the light. This is like ambient light from the sky vs. sunlight here...
The values in the scene come closer together, because with a bigger area of light, more light rays can hit more areas.
Again, this is why you don't see the harsh, dark shadows you get with a direct light.
But watch this. The box rises above the ground just a little bit, and we do get a very dark area under there!
That is where the ambient light is occluded. Hence the familiar term "ambient occlusion."
So when you're painting ambient light, it becomes very important to look for the deepest spaces, and put your darkest values there.
And yes, I have a whole video about ambient occlusion, so check that out too!
Let's do a quick study, though.
I'm painting the box we just saw. May as well throw a sphere study in there for good measure.
These are both under the same light - ambient light coming down from above. Like skylight.
I'll have the box hovering above the ground, like we just saw in the example...
But the sphere I'll just have sitting on the ground regularly. The amount of ambient occlusion will differ between the two.
You can use any brush you want for these...any approach you want...so long as you acknowledge the principles we've learned so far.
And,I mean, those principles are pretty simple!
In this case, so long as I give the top planes the lightest values,
The side planes slightly darker values...
And the planes that turn under - as well as those deep crevices - the darkest values...
I'm gonna be in pretty good shape!
Now the head is a more complicated form ... obviously.
But the head is just made of planes. It's a more complicated box! So it'll react in exactly the same way!
So let me show you how I go about this. I'm starting out with a line drawing to help me maintain some alignment.
Because as you can start to see here, I'm only interested in the largest planes at the moment.
I'm trying to reduce the head, as much as I can, toward that box. Thinking about planes that point up...
vs planes that point to the side ... vs planes that point downward, or those deep crevices.
So it's essentially a 3-value-group consideration at first.
With complexity added thanks to the soft edges I'm using between values.
This first stage, while not exactly pretty yet, is probably the most important because it's where you capture the structure of the head.
Now, the logical question here is: how do you learn which planes face in which directions?
That's where physical models like this come in real handy.
Big planes that face upward include the brow here...the front plane of the cheek...
The front plane of the nose...as well as the top plane of the chin...
And the upper planes of the muzzle area of the mouth.
OK, big planes that face the side include the temple plane here...
The side plane of the cheek and the side plane of the jaw...
As well as the side plane of the nose.
And the planes that face under, or the deepest crevices, are like the eye socket here...
Just underneath the nose, as well as the upper lip...
And this underplane, underneath the head itself.
Going back to my painting now, we can see those 3 categories taking shape.
The planes that point up get the lightest values.
The planes that point to the side getting slightly darker,
And the planes that go under get even darker.
Here's a simplified version which may help reveal the organization I'm talking about.
Alright, we'll continue this painting right after a short break!
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So now that I've got the structure figured out,
I can start refining the whole piece.
I'm starting with the darks. Fleshing out the ambient occlusion areas and giving the whole thing more contrast.
I'm also focusing on smaller shapes here: the undersides of the eyelids, the eyebrows...
Some smaller planes of the head...and I'll give the same consideration to the hair as well.
From a draughtsmanship level, this is where your alignment can start becoming faulty, so flip the canvas and make sure you keep an eye on that.
This is an important stage too, because the character of what you're painting starts to happen here.
So to recap: phase 1 of the painting dealt more with structure, phase 2 dealt more with character.
Moving on to the final stage of the painting, I'd like to try adding a little bit of an environment.
That is, other elements in the background that may contribute some ambience to our character in shadow here.
So it looks like ambient light is striking objects on the left side of the picture ... I'll bring in some ambient light from the left.
Just be careful to not overdo this! Remember that ambient light is a soft - or diffuse - light.
Those relay runners are coming in from different directions...
Which means they're hitting different planes from different angles.
And that all translates to an overall softness of the form.
So, I've been calling this "more advanced." And while I do think it's harder to paint this type of light,
I think understanding how it works is very easy.
I mean, we're under 10 minutes at this point in the video and I think I've covered the fundamentals!
Except for color. That's a whole other topic.
A topic I've already made a video on, actually! So add that to your list as well :)
So just to add to the sense of ambience coming in from a certain direction, I'll get a broad airbrush,
and go over the left side of the form. Which I think helps offset the tonal symmetry here.
Alright, so my end result came out like this.
And I've been talking about big plane changes ... let me show you some small ones.
The brow can be broken into 3 subgroups.
Each group of planes points upwards, but to slightly different degrees.
And, despite close values and soft edges, I really tried to be clear about that information.
Also this area here - where the eye socket and temple meet the cheekbone...
There are subtle, but definite, directional changes there too.
And I knew I couldn't call my painting finished until I captured that!
The head is chock-full of relationships just like this. Planes big and small.
If you'd like to learn more about it, I have a 7-hour class that focuses exclusively on understanding this stuff.
Check it out at www.marcobucciartstore.com