An evening... a lesson learnt!

Today afternoon amma walks into my room and sees me getting ready for some painting. Hadn't yet finalized what I was going to make! Picking up my older works she says, "Paint something from imagination!"

And here it is... Something I vaguely remembered seeing in TV somewhere.

Tried some shadowing effect. Here I am assuming that light source is from right hence the shadows are falling to the left and more towards the corner.. Though now that I actually think about it, I think it should have been more to the back... 🙄

For the shadow I have used dark grey from my 24 shades camel cake set. 

That gives rise to an important question:

Is Grey the correct colour for shadows? What are shadows?

[5] drawpaintsculpt website (https://www.drawpaintsculpt.com/the-colour-of-shadows/) says,

"It is a common misconception that a shadow is the absence of light. If there were no light in the shadow, you would not be able to see anything at all, whereas you almost always can see into shadows in nature.  A better description would be to say that shadows are the absence of the primary light source.

The light in shadows is from secondary light sources such as ambient light or reflected light. As such, the colour of any given shadow can be determined by combining the colour of all the sources of secondary light, and then accounting for the local colour of the surface onto which the shadow is falling.

In studios with north facing light, this tends to lead to warm shadows, because the secondary sources of light (in this case reflected light from walls, floor and objects in the room) are warmer than the bluish light of north-facing window.

Outdoors, in direct sunlight, the shadows tend to appear bluish, because their light is mainly coming from the ambient blue of the sky, as opposed to the white-yellow light of the direct sun which is illuminating the lights of the form."

So, how do we mix to form those shadows?

[4] creativebloq website (https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/mix-shadow-colour-in-paint) gives in detail how to mix shadow colour. 

"Shadows include the local colour, its complementary colour, and a blue."

Hence, my colour should have been... 

For the leaves: green+red+blue, may be Prussian blue.

And, for the vase: purple+yellow+blue.

[6] clipstudio website (https://www.clipstudio.net/how-to-draw/archives/163236) includes in-depth information on highlights and shadow with respect to light source and the multi tones it generates on the object and I realise I have got the shadow all wrong😁.

That's why planning and research is required before executing! Keep in mind next time...

“Every artist was first an amateur.”

                                                 – Ralph Waldo Emerson

[7] willkempartschool website (https://willkempartschool.com/a-beginners-guide-to-shadow-light-part-1-drawing/) Is a 3 part tutorial on lights and shadow drawing. A wonderful piece to refer to for more knowledge on shadows. Drawing is the base of painting. If we can master drawing then its only colours that need to added! Cool!

A new concept learned today... Shadows!👍

“Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.” 

                              – Edgar Degas

Dedicated to amma dearest ❤️

🙏

05.06.2021