"First Steps" Exercises from DWM Videos

[wayneCol]

Exercise 1 - thanks for the complement. I have had lots of practice in the past with hatching/cross-hatching and stippling. Recent wrist problems resulted in me not being very pleased with results of that exercise. I used to have a much better "natural hand rhythm" but now I seem to have developed a little jiggle - and yes I'm working on getting rid of it As an aside, I did not find that exercise at all boring - it does exactly what it is designed to do - show off inconsistencies so you can work on eliminating them.

Exercise 2 was a heap of fun and I enjoyed it a lot!

Exercise 3 ....

So the matboard house was not illuminated by a single light source which is what my analysis was based on. (By the way academic art always uses a single light source!).

A reflective object on the same level as the house would send reflected light up under the overhang and lighten that shadow and that reflected light would be strongest at the base of the wall and fall off quickly as the height increased, so I doubt that the Artograph had much of an influence.

From the angle of the shadow cast by the overhang, the second light source was above the model and to the left and based on the value of that shadow relative to the already shadowed side of the house the second source was relatively strong - a ceiling light or a window maybe? Indeed the second light source if it's strong enough to cast that shadow should have brightened the shadow side of the house and we should see a fall off of the light as it descends the shadowed wall.

I'm sorry Mike, but I really don't understand the light effects in that image, unless "artistic license" was at work as you suggest and you put the shadow in to emphasize the separate planes of the wall and the overhanging roof and I can live with that. By the way, I'm assuming that this is a photographic image of the actual object done with no-flash. If it's an image of your rendering of the setup, well that changes everything.

[Mike Sibley]

I'm assuming that this is a photographic image of the actual object done with no-flash. If it's an image of your rendering of the setup, well that changes everything.

That is the actual photo. And, as far as I can remember, no changes or enhancements were made.

I understand your reasoning, Wayne. When I said (in jest) I like the way you're thinking. It's wrong... but good thinking nonetheless, I meant it. You're asking questions about what you see; seeking understanding; and not accepting anything at its face value.

Given that I made this "house" maybe 20 years ago, as I recall I photographed it at night, in a variety of positions. I'm quite certain of that. It was in my old studio that was in our house, and the studio lights at that time were two fluorescent tubes. Even using one would have been too much for the intended single source to be effective, so I doubt any other light was used.

I was using a Canon AE1 film camera, and I would have been using Adobe's PhotoDeluxe v3.0 (the precursor to Elements) or Photoshop v6.0 at that time. So, I might have adjusted contrast while erasing the background, but would not have altered the photo in any meaningful way.

What I think occurred is that light reflected off the white ceiling diluted the values on the dark wall, but not the section beneath the overhang.

But my point is that none of that matters. Even if I had added or removed shadows, I'd still see this as being acceptable for use within a drawing. And if those shadows were not present, I would certainly have invented them.

That's because they each tell a tale in their immediate area. They are VISUAL CLUES.

As your eye moves around the drawing it will see the shadow cast by the roof onto the left-hand wall and INSTANTLY KNOW that the roof is overhanging. The same applies to the shadows on the right-hand wall. And - of this I am certain - the human mind is not going to compare those shadows to the one on the other wall and seek to discover the number of sources of light. No. It will soak up the local information and move on.

Obviously, you cannot blatantly lie - such as having two or more adjacent wildly differing light sources. But those shadows will have been subconsciously read and understood to contain information about the three-dimensional form, and the ambient light conditions, which might include the time of day, strength of sunlight, cloudy or clear, and possibly the time of year.

And omitting shadows, where they serve no purpose as clues and might only confuse, adds weight and importance to the shadows that are included.

None of that might be academically correct. But artistically it's certainly a very valid way of supplying relevant and necessary information as you steer your viewers around your work.

[wayneCol]

The more I look at this exercise the more confused I get. I have just noticed for example that the shadows under the overhanging eaves on the light side facing us, both of those shadows have penumbras, so either there are 2 primary light sources to the right and above or the light source is very large Also the light side shows no fall off of the lights as it descends the wall.

On the dark side wall, if we assume that it is reflected light from the ceiling, if it is strong enough to cast a dark shadow under the eave why do we not see any fall off of the reflected light as it descends the wall? In fact on that wall we see no effect of the reflected light at all - but it is strong enough to cast a shadow? In addition we see no evidence of any reflected light from above shining on the roof!

So maybe it's reflected light from the ground plane -- can't be, because we have a cast shadow from the overhang!!!

So maybe the photo was taken with a flash??? Also can not be, because a flash would eliminate the penumbrae and harden the cast shadow edges!

Sorry to say it, but I don't understand the geometry and physics of this image and I can't draw or shade something I don't understand and can't explain. So, I'm putting this one on the shelf for a while and moving on to the next set of exercises.

[Mike Sibley]

...or the light source is very large. Also, the light side shows no fall off of the lights as it descends the wall.

I'm just going to comment on that first. You could consider the light to be large because the model was small. And because the model was small, there is very unlikely to be any fall off with distance.

I appreciate your arguments, and, if this was a real house, I'd agree with you. But an Anglepoise lamp has maybe a five-inch diameter shade, the "house" was about 24" (60cm) away, and it was about 5" (13cm) tall.

And...

On the dark side wall, if we assume that it is reflected light from the ceiling... why do we not see any fall off of the reflected light as it descends the wall? ...In addition, we see no evidence of any reflected light from above shining on the roof!

And I strongly doubt you will see any of that. The wall was about 3" high. A fall off of light bouncing off a white surface some 5–6 feet above a 3" surface is unlikely to be detected. The same applies to the 2" wide x 4" long roof panel.

As for the exercise, there are three ways of looking at this.

I understand that you query the lighting. I took the photo so many years ago that I don't remember the exact set-up, only where the "house" was placed on my workbench along with the Anglepoise lamp. So...

1:
Being sceptical and/or inquisitive is a good thing. Drawing what you understand is always preferable to mere copying, and it gives the best results...

2:
...but in this case, none of that matters. This is an exercise in shading and blending. It's purely technical, involving no interpretation. The exercise simply asks that you copy what you see. However, one expectation is that you treat it as a three-dimensional object, and don't draw what you expect to see.

3:
And if you don't understand, or agree with the lighting, then draw the guidelines, choose a lighting direction, and draw the three-dimensional form using that lighting. The chances are you might still make the usual errors. And it's ERRORS I'm looking for. Sometimes I even design exercises to encourage them. Because you learn more from errors than from being correct.

For example, you might not lighten and feather the edges of the shadow cast on the right-hand wall. You could - and might - argue against this, but I think the light coloured wall would reflect a little light back up into that shadow and dilute its edges.