Open To Interpretation
How Light Falls on Drawings/Paintings
Greek Warrior
from pinterest from?
Notes: The seascape is Edgar Payne's Laguna Coast, I've chosen to copy, and, and so a thought study everyday...right off I noticed how the light on the waves goes from the right corner to top left...Payne was a student of composition tricks...trick is to grab hold of our small focus field...I mean, one can just gaze, and one can focus, and the size of focus is like the size of printed word in a book!...what happens is our vision bounces around from the general to the specific, and artists trap viewers in their pictures to look here, then here, then there....it's kinda mercenary!...but a lot of it is done subconsciously, both by the artist and viewer...viewing paintings can be as much an art, and struggle, as painting them!...notice too how the highest point of the waves aligns with one outcrop of rocks, then another, into the far distant looking clouds...there's like six little receding focal points...it's an X composition...big line from bottom right corner to top left...another from up 2/3 left to top right corner...note he uses the same value of white on all the waves-the brightest white...that's a mistake...artists have a color on their brush, and willy nilly, use it for both foreground and background-the same value...the color changes with distance...without taking this into account, and using the self same value fore and aft, a painting is flat...I have my rule of three...one color, three values...trees, rocks, waves, every color-three values...the distant ones a bit darker, or lighter, subdued...or just three to give it the sense of it...apparently, a lot of the Impressionist miss this...the paint color on their brush they used for a foreground note, they just lift up and drop it on a background note...a quibble!...anyway, anyway, I was watching the demo drawing, Thor with Hammer and Boar, and the artist explains how he works the fall of light...it casts on Thor's head, his right arm, his hammer, and the Boar...this leads the viewers eye on that path...find the clip on youtube...artist explains all he is about...artists are never short on explanations!...so, soh, after snacking this morning, Micky D's deluxe breakfast and coffee, I thought to sketch in the manner of comic artists...myself, I begin with pencil and circles and cones and mannikin shapes, and, and what happens is after drawing one thing, one's sense of how things fit together kicks in, and it's like a path to follow...the demo artist started with Thor's right eyebrow...just such a small cue is enough...see caricature artist demos!...as I drew my warrior, the legs were messed up...that still visible...the front looks like the back leg, and visa versa...the trailing leg I had to bring forward somehow to make it the right leg...fussed and fussed...and remembered my fall of light lessons, and used the kneadable eraser to make a highlight trail from the helm, to the shoulder, to the hip, to the left leg grieve...or some such!...
:)
DavidDavid
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