Shadow Study

 

What better time to write about shadows than now, just after Groundhog Day! This year, the Groundhog did see his shadow, and I have also been thinking about shadows in my paintings. Sometimes it is a struggle to get shadow colors correct. Why?  Because a shadow is usually not a very intense color.  Read on...

(c) Peggi Kroll Roberts

If a color is "intense", it is easy to name immediately. Examples are an apple, or a well manicured golf green.  It takes only a split second to identify one as "red" and the other as "green". But just try to name the color of the shadow beneath a car.  No name comes to mind.  The shadow color is of very low intensity, and thus very hard to identify. 

"Teapot and Fruit"

12 x 16, Oil on Linen

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

That said, the cast shadow can be the artist's best friend. It helps define the object that is casting the shadow. And it anchors the object to the ground. Take a look at the paintings above by Peggi Kroll Roberts. The cast shadow is as just important as the person casting it! And it my teapot painting, the shadow shapes help unify the painting and connect all the objects.

(c) Karin Jurik

For another illustration of the power of the  shadow, we need look no farther than the painting above, featuring the bicycle shadow. I might even say that the shadow MAKES this painting what it is.  Enjoy! 

The Poetry of a Shadow

(c) Karin Jurik

I have written in the past about shadows. But my posts have been very prosaic, especially compared with this beautiful poem. 

If you don't know Wells Mason and Ironwood Industries, you should. Wells creates art, disguised as furniture (my words). His creations are like form and creativity taking wing together.   The Umasi chair shown below is just one example. 

Umasi Chair VIII, Ironwood Industries

Wells recently posted this poem, a gift to him from another artist, Kirk Wilson. I thought it was so beautiful that it deserved to be shared further. And the concepts apply to painting as well as to other plastic arts. I italicized my favorite couplet. Enjoy!

Form and Shadow

For Wells Mason

The form and the shadow

     are form

When the shadow disappears

     it is implicit in the form

Without the shadow the form

     is barren it imagines nothing

When the shadow reappears

     the form and the shadow are shadow

The nature of the shadow

     is the inverse of the nature of the form

The echo of the form

     is the voice of the shadow

The shadow is the form's wing

     The form is the shadow's foot

The form breathes the shadow

     The shadow dreams the form

The form's disappearance

     is implicit in the shadow

Without the form the shadow

     is lost it wanders going nowhere

When the form reappears

     the form and the shadow are form

By Kirk Wilson

2007

The Color of Light

"Harmony, Yellow"
Oil on Linen, 16 x 20
(c) Lesley Powell

Most painters know that light has a color. It may be difficult to see at first, but with experience one starts to perceive the color of light, and to understand its effects. I have heard that one of the great impressionists (was it Cezanne? or maybe Monet?) used to throw a white handkerchief down on the ground before he started painting, and look at it to see what color the sunlight was at that moment. 

Why is this so important? Because the color of the light affects everything we see, and therefore everything we paint. It affects the color of the objects on which it falls, and it

The Shadow Struggle

If you've been reading here for very long, you already know that learning to paint is really all about learning to see. In learning to see, one of the trickiest things (at least for me) is learning to see the color of shadows. This is true for cast shadows (such as those in the top photo), as well as for the shadowed side of an object (called a "form shadow"). When light is striking a subject, its color is more readily apparent. But what lurks in the shadows??

One reason that shadows can be difficult to decipher is that their color is very subtle. In painting parlance, I would say that they are of "low intensity". Their color is a bit wishy-washy. It can be pushed in different directions, depending on the light, the immediate surroundings, and anything else in the field of vision.

"Miller Services Building"
8 x 10, Oil on Board
(c) Lesley Powell 2016
SOLD

There are guidelines that can be helpful. For example, the painter Richard Schmid has written that warm light produces cool shadows, and cool light produces warm shadows. An

Seeing a Shadow

What better time to write about shadows than now, approaching Groundhog Day! As we wonder whether the groundhog will see his shadow, I am thinking about shadows in my paintings. Sometimes it is a struggle to get shadow shapes and colors correct. 

(c) Peggi Kroll Roberts

One issue is that a shadow varies in intensity. The "core" of a shadow tends to be very dark, but the edges tend to be lighter. Or, as Leonardo da Vinci said  more poetically: