Changing the Lighting and Environment in Your Painting
$204.92
$218
You save $13.08
Bundle discount Each additional course part in your cart adds 3% off all courses, up to 15% off.
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
About instructors
We're a hub for artists to improve their skills and connect with a community of like minded peers and talented mentors.
Lead Artist at Blizzard Entertainment
assignments 12 submissions
I had some fun but at some point but I just hate painting backgrounds, man.
Well, to be more precise, I feel so clueless as to how to make a "nice" background (and/or props) that I get demoralised to the extent that eventually I felt like I was "rolling through punches" to move forward and "finish" the piece.
I don't want to "not do it" because I know that I want my finished artwork to have (even simple) clean backgrounds, but I clearly feel like I lack some knowledge or something.
Anyways 'nuff whining (for now)
Thanks for the lesson 🙂
LESSON NOTES
What's in Premium?
I will show you how to turn a basic reference study into an original painting. We take the figure from our previous study and place her in a completely new environment with different lighting. I walk you through my digital workflow using layers, blending modes, and adjustment layers. This lets you change lighting and colors without starting from scratch. You will learn how to set up a warm direct light and a cool ambient light to create temperature contrast. I also explain how to adjust shadows for better composition and why believability matters more than strict accuracy. You will see how to use macro adjustments to harmonize your scene and confidently paint from imagination.
Get this lesson and more in the premium course!
DOWNLOADS
changing-the-lighting-and-environment-in-your-painting-captions-english.srt
26 kB
changing-the-lighting-and-environment-in-your-painting.mp4
449 MB
changing-the-lighting-and-environment-in-your-painting-captions-spanish.srt
29 kB
ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Kassjan (Kass) Smyczek]()
![]()
![@hyki]()
![]()
![@myccal]()
![]()
![@myccal]()
![]()
![Holly Laing]()
![]()
![onigi *pronunce [on-ie-gee]*]()
![]()
![Nicole Drews]()
![]()
![@myccal]()
![]()
![Tsotne Shonia]()
![]()
![Jon Neimeister]()
Give this process a try on your own! If you are struggling with painting from imagination, this can be a great method to help ease you into the process.
Start with a direct study from reference and then see if you can turn that reference into your own original painting.
The only limit here is your creativity. This process give you a lot of control and creative freedom. So let yourself run wild, experiment and see what you can create.
I wanted to put my painting of the assignment of the previous lesson into a western environment. I attached also the image which I liked as reference. And I wanted to try to create a picture that was not having a face as a focal point. but rather the hat and the boots. This piece was fun!
Definitely the hardest lesson of the course. Backgrounds aren't something I think about or practice at all, so this was a struggle. With that said, I'm happy with the result I ended up with, and like always I can't wait to keep practicing and eventually compare my future work to this to see my progress.
The lighting setup I was going for here was an overcast day, so I tried to keep my cast shadows to a minimum and put more focus on softer form shadows. Overall I didn't end up changing too much from the original figure painting. In the end I think the contrast between the figure and the background might be too much, and it doesn't help that the background is more textured and painterly while the figure is clear and crisp. It was a fun study though.
Looking forward to continuing this course! Thanks again Jon.
Curious if there will be more to the class? It’s been a couple months since the last post as far as I can see. I’ve been enjoying it so far and I’m eager to learn more. I understand that things come up and delays can occur, but is there any update on when we might see another lesson?
Never mind. I found an update on Jon's profile page. @Jon Neimeister I hope the move went well and the new job is everything you hoped for. Looking forward to more lessons when you are able to get to it. Thanks for everything so far.
I had a lot of fun with this assignment, it was interesting to experiment and see how using different colors and lighting impacted the final result. Keeping everything on separate layers definitely helped expedite the process.
I ended up painting something similar to the demo and chose a meadow as a background. I also used various blending modes and adjustment layers to change the lighting on the figure from cool lights/warm shadows to warm lights/cool shadows in order to better reflect the setting. Thanks again for another great lesson!
I've been studying the human figure for a year, but I just realized I still didn't know it much; Once I removed the light source in the reference picture we had and put the one I wanted, I got lost and couldn't see where new lights and shadows would form at all. Human shapes are really complex and also interesting!
Drawing two buildings was far more exhausting than I expected! I gave up many details I originally planned to add, like textures on the walls and the roof of the bakery.
Photoshop functions we've learned through this course greatly helped me. I couldn't finish this piece without these tools.
I don't think I have too much to say about this one.
I feel like I learned a lot more about adjustment layers and blending modes with this piece and am more comfortable with them, which feels really nice.
(also it wasn't as frustrating as the last assignment since I'm not so confused about AO anymore)
I ended up not rendering this one much and just kept it as a rougher colour study, hopefully that's ok. I think all the important elements are there though so it reads fine
Having fun with the course. I also need to invest more time in background practice. But it is definitely cool learning how this technique allows to quickly make changes to all sorts of things.
I had some fun but at some point but I just hate painting backgrounds, man.
Well, to be more precise, I feel so clueless as to how to make a "nice" background (and/or props) that I get demoralised to the extent that eventually I felt like I was "rolling through punches" to move forward and "finish" the piece.
I don't want to "not do it" because I know that I want my finished artwork to have (even simple) clean backgrounds, but I clearly feel like I lack some knowledge or something.
Anyways 'nuff whining (for now)
Thanks for the lesson 🙂
•
3yr
Hey Tsotne! Thanks for keeping up with all the assignments, it's been great following your work. :D
Don't worry, it will get easier! The most likely culprit is that you're simply more experienced with figures than backgrounds, so you're hitting a bit of a wall where you know you can paint "better" than this, but it's not coming together the way you want for the background which can be frustrating. As with everything: practice, study, and reference is the key! Additionally, backgrounds are very reliant on perspective so investing some time into learning that can help a lot.
This is also a very challenging assignment, we've been working almost entirely with reference up to this point, but if you invented the background from imagination that's a whole new problem to tackle. Did you have reference for this background or was it purely invented?
I'll get deeper into this on the critique video, but for now I hope this helps. Keep it up, you're doing all the right things! :)
