Friday, April 12, 2013

Tippette #12 - Sunlight through Objects

Tippette = Snippet of a Tip (in watercolor).  One per day...during April...right here!


Sunlight through Objects
As painters, we're captivated with light and shadow.  Light that seems to be shining THROUGH objects is even more enchanting...and elusive.  In these two examples, I hope to show you my attempts at painting this mystery.

"Hearts of Gold" by Helen K. Beacham - Sold.





Detail of "Hearts of Gold" by Helen K Beacham
First of all, you have to keep in mind your objective, and not randomly fill in those areas (with dark paint) where you want it to look like the sunlight is shining through your subject.  A thumbnail sketch beforehand can be very handy in a case like this (to show the light and dark patterns that you'd like to preserve).  The use of yellow seems obvious but any warm colors will be useful here (burnt sienna, cadmium red, orange).  I like to leave a glow around the subject as well...notice the glow of yellow that is allowed to bleed outside of the subject's perimeters.

Below is another example where I played up the "feeling" of sunlight through my subject, even though the sun was to the left of the subject.  It's effective nevertheless, and you can see a close up of the area in the last image.

"Ocean Breezes" by Helen K Beacham - Sold.
Detail of "Ocean Breezes" by Helen K Beacham
Come with Helen K. Beacham and Kelly Medford to paint Venice this October...
click HERE for details!

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2 comments:

  1. Great tippette! Love your colors, always, Helen, and it was nice to see the close up of the dress. I don't remember if I noticed it originally.

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  2. You,re right! The focus of "Ocean Breezes" is not the sunlight! But I hope it lets the viewer know that it was late afternoon.

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