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Help with applying shadow
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Message
Posted
The piece I am working on at the moment is in evening sun with long shadow, this means there is a large area that is in dark shadow. I have tried applying a dark grey wash over this area to allow all the detail below to show through, but I am having difficulty applying it evenly, I have got a problem with lapping and the more I go over it to cover up the dark lapping the darker the shadow gets. It is now a bit too dark. I have thought about using a damp sponge but the painting is almost complete and I don't want to spoil it, so any advice would be very much appreciated.
Cheers, Steve
Posted
Grampy first of all dont paint shadows grey. there is a certain amount of bluey mauve which looks more attractive anyway. I would never use anything as large and clumsy as a damp sponge. use a stiff damp brush to agitate the paint then dab it off. This is called "lifting off" and is something which needs a bit of care but is a well known method of lightening or even removing paint. cheers Syd
Posted
Agree with all that, but there's another way too - use the complementary colour: mix it with the colour, or just apply it in a wash or glaze over the top.
So, if you want a shadow on green grass, the complementary of green is red: either lay a transparent red wash over the green (when I say 'red', it could be anything from a crimson to the red-brown of burnt sienna, Venetian Red, or something similar) or take the grass green you've used and mix your red directly into it until you've got a dark enough shadow.
This also works if you want a shadow on red - use green. With a blue, use orange; with yellow, use violet. It's usually important not to over-mix in watercolour, but if you were using acrylic you could actually go on adding glazes for quite a while - you could lay a unifying glaze over, say, your green and its shadow; perhaps a transparent ochre or something similar. But let's keep it simple .... don't want you mixing mud and then blaming me....
The thing to avoid, as Derek and Syd have said, is any sort of tube grey, or worse, black, or burnt umber - there was a very great painter named Rowland Hilder, whose work you might know, who used black, Paynes Grey, and a tone called Neutral Tint for shadows - but he was a genius, and most of us aren't. I've tried to replicate his results, but have never really succeeded.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
Hi Robert,
Thank you for your reply and all the information contained within it. I can now see how Red will work with Green, Blue with Orange & Yellow with Violet. I can see them in my minds eye. But without your assistance I would never have thought of such combinations.
Again many thanks, Steve
Posted
Hi Steve, I will not go into colours as you have already had lots of good advice from other members, the one thing I would say is about your trouble with 'lapping' I assume you mean edges of brush strokes overlapping each other and giving different variations of colour. I do not know what brushes you use but what I would say is that when you have a large area to cover, be bold and use as large a brush as you can, this way you will reduce the number of strokes to cover an area and often only need one. Just a thought. Good luck with all the other advice.
Posted
Paynes Grey - I love it - winter skies and a whole host of different greens depending on which yellow you mix it with (speaking watercolours here).
Black - it can be okay for tiny highlights - you can even add a bit of red or blue for harmonising although I prefer to use ult blue with light red, or burnt umber.
Posted
Just to show that Paynes Grey isn't so bad I've posted a painting in the gallery which uses predominantly PG - if you want to take a look it's at:
http://www.painters-online.co.uk/gallery/art-view,picture_171863.htm
Edited
by MichaelEdwards
Posted
Michael's is not a painting which employs the full range of colours though - the Grey works well in that example because it's been deliberately chosen to enhance the design (in fact, it works VERY well) but if you're wanting to indicate shadows in a full spectrum painting you need a different approach.
Let me be brutally frank - I have a hangover, so I'm just in the right mood (and I'm certainly not going to be brutal with Michael, by the way) - there is a well-known art tutor* who has videos all over the place and a "unique range of tree brushes" who gives the advice, disastrously in my opinion, that you can achieve shadow by mixing a given quantity of Payne's Grey with any colour. I'm usually feeling too kindly to take him on directly, so normally just offer contrary advice, but today my dander is up.....! (*Sylvia/North Light will know exactly whom I'm describing!)
Don't do what he suggests. So many of his paintings look as if they've been printed by old-fashioned equipment - the sort of depressingly dull stuff you used to find in some old books. Payne's Grey is a very useful colour, as is Neutral Tint, when used appropriately - but if you only achieve shadow by adding a form of blue-black to your colour, you WILL sully it; it's a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn't actually fit all. Yes, it'll give you a darker colour, as will black, but it'll be too stark, and above all it'll be dead
Some skillful artists have used black, or PG, to indicate that particular green of high-summer trees, with a strong yellow of their choice (Chrome Yellow, which Derek used, can't be had now, at least in its original formulation: but there are others). That's not about shadow, though, but about getting that deep, strong green of a particular time of year: it's available in a tube of its own - although it's still better to mix it - called Hooker's Green, which is usually made with black (and is very hard to control indeed). Depending on the yellow used, and the maker, that might give you a close equivalent to the colour Derek describes - but I wouldn't bank on it doing so, and don't recommend Hooker's at all other than for mixing one of the most dense blacks, with a touch of crimson.
The advice given here about mixing your darks and shadows will be far more useful than you'll find in certain dvds and online lessons. If you want to know how to use black and PG, though, Alan Owen, and in a different way Steve Cronin, can teach you a lot, on YouTube. There's no reason to avoid PG if you use it for its intended purpose, get used to it, find the difference between different makes (it's been said before, but W & N's PG is bluer than Daler-Rowney's - which isn't a recommendation for the use of one over the other, because you might value the darker version or the lighter depending on what you're doing). But treat it with the respect it deserves, as in Michael's painting, not just as a handy resort to add a bit of murk and call it shadow.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
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