No Light Without Shadow!

\All painters want to know how to portray light in order to create atmospheric and dramatic effects. When an artist can emphasize light, an everyday scene can become far more exciting. Since light is represented in watercolor by the untouched paper, the light is already in the painting. The watercolor artist must preserve the white/light while painting mid-tones and shadows in order to accentuate the light. Only by painting the darks or shadows that surround the light can the light be made obvious.

On a bright sunny day, very pale washes (or untouched white paper) suggest direct sunlight, for instance, while darker mixes of color indicate a more shadowed area. Be bold! Without darks, your lights will lack liveliness. Take a look at Paint Your Shadows Bold…And Transparent!, https://leemuirhaman.com/2019/01/29/dont-be-afraid-to-paint-your-shadows-dark/, my blog post from January 29, 2019, for more tips on painting shadows.

Value contrast (with lights close to and emphasized by darks) can create the illusion of light, depth, and a center of interest. On the other hand, if there are too many areas of equal light intensity (or a lack of shadows) in a painting, the image will tend to look flat, less interesting, or bland. If you tend to avoid painting dark colors, perhaps by adjusting your values you could create a picture with more impact.

In many ways, almost nothing is as important in a watercolor painting as how you handle lights and darks (value). (For more in depth information on value, read Why Should I Bother To Use A Gray Scale?, a blog post from May 21, 2019, https://leemuirhaman.com/2019/05/21/why-should-i-bother-to-use-a-gray-scale/.) Protecting the light areas is crucial, so try to plan what areas of the picture you want to save as light before the painting begins. While you can mask, scrape, scrub, or use opaque white gouache to save/regain the white of the paper, it is often much more successful to preserve the variations in light from the outset with a painting plan of attack.

By seeing light and learning to capture it with paint, we can create the dramatic illusion of light in our work. But as Jean Haines says on page 43 in Colour And Light In Watercolour, “Before we can even begin to paint light, we have to be able to see it. Once you start to look for light it becomes an addiction. No painting feels right without it. It becomes a part of your being as an artist. You find yourself searching for ways to bring light into your work, and even more ways to paint it.” So, think about where light plays a part in each of your paintings, and observe what it is about the light on your subject that grabs your attention.

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