More from “Light for the Artist” by Ted Seth Jacobs:
The Inseparability of Value and Hue. Many painters, such as the surrealists, for example, lighten values only by adding white. They treat the value scale as if it were only a lightening and darkening of the same hue. This is a serious mistake for the optical artist. It is an essentially “black-and-white” approach. The result is similar to a colored drawing, with local colors washed over the value changes, and does not take into account the fact that the light is colored. Value and color change together, organically. We cannot run up and down the value scale without constantly varying the hue.For example, if the light source has some kind of (unnameable!) yellowish coloration and the shadow turns correspondingly complementary, as the values darken the yellowness will also drop. We need to incorporate this hue change into each value change. We must see each change as a colored value. Otherwise we are essentially painting in a monochrome. We also must avoid “tinting” value changes with the same color. For example, if the light itself is yellowish, we ought not to put the same intensity of yellow everywhere in the light.
Also take care not to give the shadow the same kind of hue as the light. The color of the shadow can be deceptive. For example, when the body is under a yellowish light, the reflected light in the shadow may be very warm. However, approaching the terminator, where there is the least influence of reflected light, the shadow may show more of its complementary nature. Some students notice only the very warm reflected lights and paint all the shadow warm. This makes for a warm-on-warm effect that does not correspond with optical reality. The effect is rather heavy, or hot, and the picture will not have the feeling of light speeding through it. The hue will be turgid if it is too similar in the and the shadow.
I tracked this book down from my inter-library loan system on your recommendation, will be going through it over the holiday. What a great resource, looking forward to discussing it with you. Is TSJ planning to release another book, I thought I may have heard something on that subject?
Jeff,
If you are interested in realist art, I’m sure you’ll find “Light for the Artist” useful. I have not heard anything about a new book. He is very old, although still painting and teaching. I was able to attend a lecture he gave last year.
I have a question of how this works in practice (cool and warm shadows). ie how does it work? I have a really bad tendency to make my shadows too hot.
I have a portrait of my daughter all sketched out and ready to paint from a photo taken on a warm sunny day. Her face is pink, the reflected light in the shadows looks warm red. I know from experience if I paint it the way I think it looks the shadows will be way too hot.
It seems ridiculous to me to paint a cool grisaille — the whole light side will just have to be opaquely painted over. Yet painting a pink underpainting with green shadow boundaries seems absurd to me (although that is what I’m leaning at for the moment). Or would it better to just try and capture a midtone and lean it cool and warm as necessary for the underpainting?
Any advice pointing me in the right direction would be great.
Your website is awesome by the way — I have learned a ton from it.
I can suggest two things. First, it’s a matter of careful observation. What color is a particular patch of shadow, and how does that color relate to other colors near it? Some shadows really are quite warm. For example, a shadow area that is receiving a lot of reflected light from another part of the body can be quite an intense red under some lighting conditions. Optimally, you would be able to do this from life, because photos can distort color quite a bit.
Second, look at how painters have solved this problem in the past. Here’s an example. Often, when you look at shadows on a very well painted figure, they appear to be quite cool in comparison to the lights. When you look more closely, you may notice that the shadows are of a similar hue to the lights, but lower in chroma. The shadows are actually still “warm,” but painted with darker, less intense colors. William Bouguereau was really great at doing that convincingly.
In terms of a cool underpainting, give it a try and see. There is no need to obliterate the lights with opaque paint. Instead, you can glaze over them and create tonalities with optical mixing. With a bit of practice, this can work quite well. Check out the web site of Scott Bartner, a portrait artist. He has a demonstration of multi-layer painting that is first rate.
Thanks David,
That portrait demo website was really useful (and I generally abhor demos like that — but that one was quite useful with clearly defined steps).
Haven’t decided how I’ll tackle it just yet — but you gave me some good ideas to point me in the right direction.
Thanks again..