Today’s paintings are pretty much the same as yesterday with the addition of cones and spheres. I also left out the black cube so I could use the values I have to better effect on the grey one.
This first effort at painting a sphere was one of those penny-drop moments – the tones are the same as the cube, just blended a bit and a lighter patch to show the reflection from the grey cube. There was no reflection from the cloth of course because it’s too dark.
Cubes and spheres 1
In this one I added the grey cone to make it just a bit more difficult. I also angled the white cube differently to make it a bit darker on the shadow side. I ended up with it measuring the same as the sphere – giving me a lost edge. I also experimented with softening the edges more – particularly on the sphere. I think I went a bit too far. The cone is probably the more successful.
More grey cubes, this time in groups of three. The last exercises showed that the problem areas are at the extremes of light and dark. These exercises, I think, show that the real power is in the middle values. The adjustments to compensate for the limitations of the white and black paint are the same in these grouped cubes as they were for the single cubes – except of course – that they’re all happening at once.
At the light end I have foregone the white highlight on the edge of the cube and used my white paint for the light side. The values from there down are as they are measured. At the black end I still had the problem of the shadow side of the cube being darker than my black. I painted it the same as the cast shadow. Even though I started as light as I could I still ran out of steps, it was even worse on the next painting as I will show.
Paul at Learning to See has suggested that changing the cloth for a lighter one would make these exercises more worthwhile because I’d have more steps to play with. I think he’s right (as always!).
Group of cubes 1
This second example is slightly different. At the light end I chose to paint the lightest side with N9, preserving the white paint for the light highlight. This forces all the values for the white cube down a notch to compensate. The grey cube is as seen but again minus one value to be in step with the white cube.. At the black end I have run out of values and have no choice but to paint the top, the shadow side and the cast shadow all in the same black paint. The effect is still convincing. Three cubes on a dark cloth.
Group of cubes 2
That’ll do for today. The others I painted were all variations on these, just moving the mid value up and down for different effects. Trying to keep the relationships so the form was convincing but under different conditions – soft light, bright light, chiaroscuro and Aussie sun…
