Class Four

Rendering Light and shade on form

We've been primarily drawing with line so far; a bit of shading has been explored.  In this class we'll draw from a couple of subjects that will allow us to study the effect of light and shade on form.  The wonderful thing about line work is that it is transparent.  All of the construction lines you use to construct a drawing (below left) or what you choose to envision within a figure or object(below right) can be described with line work as though we can literally see right through a subjects surface.  Line drawing can be a form of x-ray vision.

Below left is a line drawing of a torso in which you can 'see through' the linework that suggests form, to the skeleton within.  This kind of drawing illustrates the wonderful see-through x-ray quality of line.  It's the same as drawing the box arrangement  in our first exercise with line; we could draw the lines on the front but see through the front to the lines on the back.  Magic.  But turn on the light and shade (below right) and there is a sudden and dramatic shift in what we can see.  Suddenly our subject becomes opaque and there is a sense of surface.  It's not that it's less interesting, or more interesting; it is just a radical shift in our way of seeing form.  Despite the opacity of our subject, interior structures are revealed on the surface of the form; you can see parts of the skeleton creating surface tension and topography in the drawing on the right corresponding to the interior structures we can see in the drawing on the left.  These surface protrusions and dips that reveal skeletal and muscular anatomy on the outside of the body are called 'landmarks'.  If you know your anatomy, when you look at a model you can easily imagine the structure that lays beneath the skin.  When you are familiar with drawing nudes, it becomes a great deal easier to draw clothed people because you can imagine the body beneath the attire, and the skeleton beneath the body.

Drawing with Charcoal and Eraser

Before we get started, a technical aside to consider.  A prefered medium to work with to create a strong sense of light and shade on our plaster subjects is charcoal.  The great thing about it is that it is very pliable and erasable.  You can push it around a lot.  As well as smudging and pushing it around, you can still shade with it's side, hatch and cross hatch.  A quick review of shading and hatching below:

We can shade with the side of our charcoal, below a.  We can sharpen the end a bit and hatch as in below b.

We can darken our values to establish deeply shaded areas by cross hatching as in below c. The hatching can be built up in layers to create rich darks as in  below d.

As well, you can 'shade' with the side of your crayon under, and on top of, your hatching. You can also smudge with your finger, and lighten and lift with an eraser. The latter will be easy with charcoal, a most forgiving drawing medium.

Below you can see how we can move from the basic light/dark division in below, one, to a more embellished rendering in  below, two. Notice how you can create a sense of volume in the ball shape by darkening the 'core' of the object. This is a result of bounced secondary light reflecting back to the shade side of the object. It has the good fortune of also pitting darkest darks and lightest lights in the ball in the very area that is closest to us; the centre; that light and dark juxtaposition creates the contrast that makes the nearest part of the ball stick out and appear closest to us.

Here are some brief tips on working with charcoal.  Charcoal has an excellent line quality for quick sketching and drawing. That line can easily smudge, however, so you must 'fix it' if you intend to consider your drawing finished at the level of  development you can see below.

You can smudge that linework with your finger to soften and lose lines, and also create a light tone, as below.

You can shade with the side of your charcoal, and then smudge the shading if you wish, (below).

You can draw into charcoal tone with a rubber or kneaded eraser, picking out lights as below.

You can hatch directly for a harsher looking tone, or cross hatch into your shaded and smudged tone. You can then smudge the cross hatching to soften it (below).

You can cross hatch for richer tones and subtle darks. And smudge them as much as you wish (below).

You can push and pull with your drawing almost like mucking around in oil paint. A better quality paper will survive all the abrasion. That pushing and pulling to create a sense of light and shade on form will involve shading with the side of crayon, smudging, lifting with the eraser, smudging, hatching, crosshatching, softening with smudging, and lifting out highlights and all sorts of combinations of these techniques to create the 'finished' product, below.

Exercise : Drawing and shading The Planes of the Head and Plaster Casts

One of the subjects available to you draw and render light and shade on it's form is going to be a 'Planes of the Head' model.  It is a white plastic model of the head in a simplified planar design to show the major planes that exist on in a portrait head.  When you look at a someones head, you can't actually see the planes.  Well, as an artist, you can; but you have to imagine where they are.  In fact, the number of planes that you choose to see will depend on how small you visualize them.  If you look at the head and reduce it to the most basic number of planes, it is a box. It has front, back, two sides and a top and bottom.  Thats 6 sides I think, all of which face unique directions.  Check that, my math is moronic.  If you were sculpting a head, we have seen how an artist might start his sculpture with a box; the minimal number of planes to establish his 3D form.  Bit by bit he chisels away at that form, creating more fascets/planes, that turn and face in unique directions.  Think of a disco ball, in which is a ball but made up of many many (mirrored) fascets or planes. It is a simpler shape than the head, a simple ball made of many small planes.  The Planes of the Head model has two levels of 'finish' in it's sculpting of planes.  One side is less developed, simpler and less complex with less planes; the other more developed and more complex with more planes.  You could keep adding subtler and subtler levels of plane division until the head becomes smooth; a finished sculpture.

Below is an early Rennaisance drawing of a goblet in which the artist, Paulo Uccello, has broken his  symetrical subject down into  meticulous planes.  He was doing this in order to study perspective, of which he was an early user.  This drawing is very similar to the 'wire frame' grid constructions used by 3D animators or designers in the initial stages of developing a subject/object.

Paulo Uccello

In the classroom, light will be deployed across our subject matter in order to create an accentuated sense of form, similar to the Planes of the Head sitting on my shelf beside my window, below.  If you look closely, you can see how the primary light source, the window, strikes the form and casts shadows on the various planes according how much they tilt away from the light source.  As well, there is some light bouncing back at the head, reflected from objects and surfaces in the room.

Below is a rough idea of how your own drawing of the Planes of the Head might proceed.  You don't have to imagine the planes on this head; they are clearly observable.  You can measure various angles, their shapes and sizes.  You can then proceed to shade them according to their degree of value.  It would be best to first indicate with a thin layer of tone where the shadow lays, leaving 'white' the planes that are most exposed to light.  Gradually you can darken your darks, and perhaps darken some of your lights subtly.  Keep in mind that, working with charcoal, you can smudge and smear and use your eraser to lighten shaded areas.  You can 'push and pull' with your values.

Below is an attempt to draw a 'Planes of the Body' model.  The sketch is what a product might look like from the manufacturer of 'Planes of the Head'.  More or less. Notice how, left, I first established a linework of  observed/imagined plane deliniations, similar, but less symetrical and geometric than Uccello's goblet above.  Then I cast a light tone over every fascet or plane on the figure that I wished to see in shadow.  That meant that all the white areas are planes facing directly, or almost directly, into the light.  Then in drawing three, far right, I made the planes that face almost in the opposite direction of the light source darker.  My value scale is limited...maybe 4 or at most 5 tones between white and black, but there is still a sense of form created by the effect of light and shade.

This is not an exercise we are going to do in class, although you might like to try it as homework.  I just wanted to go through the whole concept of envisioning planes on a smooth form as a way of assisting in creating and describing form.  The smooth form that we will have to work from is the plaster cast of a torso, and when you draw it, lightly sketching charcoal lines that indicate significant plane changes can be helpful.  These can be 'lost' later in the drawing by smudging, erasing, or shading over.

Exercise(: Drawing and shading a cast of the torso (back).

Below you can see the wide range of values that a carefully rendered charcoal drawing can provide, and how those values can create a fairly convincing suggestion of light and shade playing on form.  If you look closely you can see the suggestion of the 'bounced light' that we saw in the ball drawing above, and we can see a dark 'core' running along the right side of the shadowed area; the area where the subtle and smoothed down planes are collecting least light, either from the primary light source on the left, or the source of the bounced light on the right.

As smoothed out and as naturalistic as the surface of the figure has been made, it doesn't take much imagination to see the 'planes', the little facests of surface that catch the light at different angles.  Below the torso is our spray painting of a crumpled paper topography that illustrates the same sense of light playing across form.

Lighting is extremely important for revealing form.  The plaster cast of a torso, above, is pretty amorphous in flat lighting, top.  When a direct light source is raked across the topography, centre, a great deal more muscular and skeletal structure is revealed and can be more or less identified in comparison with an a skeleton, bottom.

Traditional oil painting from the Rennaisance on used strong major light sources to theatrically stage figures, objects and landscapes.  Theatre, and the film and television industry continue to use strong lighting schemes to reveal form; often lighting is more important than colour.  Below a quick wash sketch of a scene from Ridley Scott's Bladerunner.

wash sketch of a scene from Bladerunner

wash sketch of a photograph from a theatrical production

 On the Planes of the Head model and the hand, you can see reflected light bouncing back from objects to the right off camera and illuminating the shadow side of the form.  Many of you new to rendering light and shade on form will make the mistake of making that 'bounced light' as bright as the directly lit side of the forms.  Look carefully and make no mistake about it; all of the shadow side of the form is in shade, and the value of the areas lit by bounced light are significantly darker in value than the areas in direct light.  Also note the dark core down the middle of the index finger..and other fingers and forms.  Notice the darkest planes on the head are those that are in 'the core' and often abutting the lit area.  This light against dark creates contrast and helps bring the form forward where it is in fact closest to our point of view; it creates depth and the illusion of three dimensions. 

If there were no bounced like, as in the spraypaint topography up above, it would be the planes and surfaces facing the direct opposite direction of the most lit surfaces that would be darkest.  But having that light bounce back and hit the planes most opposed to the light illuminates them and makes the planes facing our point of view darkest.

In the above point of view you wouldn't have the best aspect on the forms as a result of being close to the light source.   It's still an interesting vantage point, but not as desirable as being at right angles to the light.  However, it's worth noting that the further away from the light objects are in this point of view, the less lit they are; they are in fact, gradually merging into the background.  Contrast is highest in the nearest objects, and less in the further ones.  The contrast in the near objects helps to bring them forward. in space.  In full the aerial perspective found on a hazy day outside you will find that the further into the distance you go lights will get darker, and darks will get lighter.  Eventually, in landscapes for example, the relief and topography of the side of a mountain that is so evident close up, will flatten out and become silloutte in the far distance as darks lighten and lights darken.

Class Five