Inventing Light

Lesson by

inDrawing Fundamentals: Accuracy, Values, & Light

Assignments 26Lesson NotesDownloads 1

Inventing Light

Lesson by

Dorian Iten

in Drawing Fundamentals: Accuracy, Values, & Light

Assignments 26Lesson NotesDownloads 1

There are three exercises in this video to encourage deliberate practice:

Draw a still life of an egg with any medium. Make it the most realistic, most refined drawing that you've ever done.
Create a light guide for a current piece you are working on.
Relighting study. Take a piece you've already done and invent a new light direction. Draw the same object again in a different light.

Josh Fiddler

•

2mo

@Dorian Iten In a lighting setup with two point sources on roughly opposite sides of the subject, I suspect you make a light guide for both sources as well as for each local value, yes? So for a blue ball with two green stripes (blue and green have different values), you'd make a guide for both local values and both light sources? so four guides?

Dorian Iten

•

1mo

Hey Josh! If you want to understand the effect of each light source on each of the materials in this scene, you could make four guides, yes. That said, you can also capture the information in one guide!

Cherish me

•

6mo

I have a question. You said to resist the temptation to go lighter with the halftones, but when should I go lighter? Because of the material?

Dorian Iten

•

1mo

When working digitally, I prefer starting with the center light value and darkening from there. I'd use lighter tonal values for the specular reflections, and be very clear about what is halftone and what is specular reflection.

Isaiah

•

2yr

Another September study challenge prompt (i.e. prompt #3: everyday object) which coincided with a Proko assignment I have been meaning to do. I did this last evening as a still life in graphite. After scanning, I enhanced it digitally. I duplicated the image into two layers. I momentarily made the top layer invisible and then applied a smudge tool to the bottom layer, until it looked somewhat like thick paint. I then converted the top layer to multiply mode and set it back to visible. The purpose in this was to improve the coverage and uniformity within the values groups, without losing the texture of the graphite on paper. Next, I used a handful of adjustment layers (Brightness/Contrast, Levels Adjustment, and Tone Curve) to move the value groups into the value ranges I thought appropriate. Throughout the night and morning, I came back to the drawing several times to make adjustments. My main areas of concern were the value transitions in in the halftones and form shadow. I also wanted to get the edges around the egg to be as sharp as possible whilst still being edges and not lines. Looking over the image now, I would like to continue making adjustments to the halftones and form shadow, as well as to the edges. For now, however, I am moving on to other studies.

Johann Martinez

•

3yr

my try on the sketching of the head on top of a surface

Manal

•

3yr

first assignment

Andrea Böhm

•

3yr

That looks great. Perhaps the core shadow could be a bit darker, the light halftones a bit brighter.

Andrea Böhm

•

3yr

This is my take at the egg challenge done in Photoshop. Feed back very welcome. Please point out the mistakes I've made.

Andrea Böhm

•

3yr

Thank you! I think both of you are right. I wasn't bold enough ;(. Here comes may next take on this.

Anjatiana Rakotoniaina

•

3yr

I think you can push further with your value range. The light seems too powerfull so may be you can darken it a bit by adding more halftone.

Account deleted

Nice work overall :) Perhaps the core shadow, the cast shadow and the reflected light could be a little darker though.

Chris Bodary

•

3yr

Something is off and I think it’s in the transition shadow to light. My halftimes are too light maybe? The light source was from my phone’s flash slightly above but mostly behind the egg

Manoo Murthy

•

3yr

Hello: I am a complete beginner and by no means have the experience to critique with authority. But in a draftsmen podcast, Stan and Marshall talk about critiquing as a beginner to help develop your own eye and build a community so I will give it a try. Thank you for your understanding. I admire your art work. I am a beginner artist but a professional maths teacher. Cast shadows are described by projecting straight lines from your light source to the edges of your shape and seeing the borders of that obstruction on the plane below. I, messily and on a phone, projected lines back from the edges of your cast shadow through the edges of your shape to see where the light source ended up. My belief is that you did not mean for the light source to be where your cast shadow imples that it is. This gives makes it look like the plane your egg is sitting on is tilted while your egg is not. I think this is where that feeling of 'wrongness' comes in to play. I have attached a picture. I won't assume to be experienced enough to suggest further actions. Thank you for the opportunity to look at your art and I hope you get as much out of my comment as I did studying your work.

Alec Moff

•

3yr

Your terminator line is too sharp. Dorian Iten has a great video on the proko youtube page that explains it way better than I could. I included a picture of what I mean with the terminator line.

Chris Bodary

•

3yr

This is as far as I know now to push this for the effect of realism. I believe I modeled all the different effects of light. Did I get it? How can I push this further? The first is the final product and the second is the comparison. The others I included to show my process going into it. This egg was done in oil, the next 2 will be graphite and charcoal. Thank you, Dorian for this course, it’s great!

Chris Bodary

•

3yr

to critique and test myself I try and label the values by intuition then I put my scale behind it and use the black and white photo to check.

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Dorian Iten

Former program director at Barcelona Academy of Art. Passionate about teaching craft and exploring the inner game of art.