T H E O R I E S O F

L I G H T & C O L O U R

INTRODUCTION

If drawing or painting in color then color theory should be a concept that you understand and use frequently. Knowing color theory will help you make decisions that otherwise may be difficult to make. It is one thing to understand color theory, it is quite another to implement color theory in your artwork in an intelligent way. Color theory is a very complex part of the fundamentals of art. This page will cover one way to use color theory to make your painted or drawn objects more visually stimulating and even more realistic. Before we get to that, let's explore some basics about light and shadow.

LIGHT & COLORS

Colour is perceived as the light reflected off of objects and has three main characteristics-hue, value, and intensity.

Light often describes the light source or light reflected within the composition. In realisticcompositions, if there is light, there is shadow.

APPLYING LIGHT & COLORS

Even though this is a flat surface, when we look at this picture we can understand geometry and the depth expressed in the picture. When you add color, that’s where the hard stuff is happening. Not only do we have to think about the values, the light source, the shadow shape, and the reflected light, but also the color of the environment, the color of the light, and the color of the shadows. There are a lot of complicated elements.

Let’s use the same grey ball in a different environment. The environment is quite warm with earthy tones, and the light source has a color. If we imagine this as an outside environment, the source of light will be the Sun so it will be yellow.

What happens when the light hits the surface of the grey ball? The light is yellow, so the highlight on the grey ball is yellow.

The environment is a warm brown. Shadows are influenced by the color of the environment, so the shadow is a warm color, not just black.

There’s also some reflected light from the blue sky that influences the shadow side. It’s very delicate in this example, but I think it makes the point.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

We see objects because of light. Without light, we cannot see. The reason that I point this out though, is that if we are to draw or paint objects as they appear to us, we must fully understand light and how it behaves on objects. We see the form of objects because of how light interacts with them. We are informed about the light that hits them (light source) through highlights and shadows.

The highlights are the areas on an object where light is hitting the object. Highlights are generally created by using the tint of the color. The opposite of highlights are shadows.

Shadows are the areas on the object where light is not hitting. Shadows are typically created by using the shades of a color. The placement of highlights and shadows tell us where the light is coming from and how it is interacting with object.

BASIC RULE IN COLOUR LIGHT & SHADOWS:

The first very common mistake is gray shadows, or shadows with the same color like lighting (light and shadows are warm, light and shadow are cold) -

Why is this mistake is so common in the modern world? - both photo manipulators and some artists use photo references, the problems come from photos.

Unfortunately photography cannot reproduce real colours of life around us – the colours of shadows especially! In the photos all shadows lose natural colours and become grey or turn same color like common lighting (pictures only in warm color scheme or only in cold scheme). Also if the shadows are grey we often tone them the same colour we tone the lighting by mistake.

It doesn't matter how many colours you've added to the picture later, if colors of light and shadow are not opposed, your work will make a weird impression.

COLOUR OF SHADOW

The colour of shadow is form from the colour of surface + opposite colour to light colour + original object colour. (the last element was discovered by impressionists and used for that technique).

COLOUR OF SHADOW SHOULD BE OPPOSITE TO COLOUR OF THE LIGHT

I suppose everyone of you is familiar with the colour wheel. Johannes Itten's colour wheel mostly used by traditional artists, rgb colour wheel suits us better.

COMPLEMENTARY COLOUR HARMONY

So, if the lighting is warm: yellow, orange, red, - the shadows should be cold: blue, purple or cyan.

On the contrary, if the lighting is cold: cyan, blue etc,- the shadow should be yellow, orange etc.

In the picture you may see examples of complementary combinations of light and shadow:

REFLECTED COLOUR

Reflected colour (colour reflection) and reflected light without expressed colour characteristics are called reflection.

If the reflection falls onto the dark area of the object, it will become a part of a chiaroscuro. In this case the reflection will look like a not intense light spot in the shadow area, formed by the rays of light reflected from surrounding objects. Drawing reflection as part of chiaroscuro is most important for traditional art.

An examples of reflected light: cyan, red and purple surfaces may give cyan, reddish and purple reflections to the sphere in the area of shadow.

In the picture a b c you may see the same complementary combinations but taking into account the colour of the surface – as you can see, light reflected from the surface was added to the picture. The colour of reflected light consists of the colour of the surface and color of the surrounding objects.

But keep in mind. Black colour devours almost all light, on the contrary white colour reflects.

BASTET & SEKHMET MUSEUM

See some correct & wrong example of applying colour light and shadow in drawing.

Wrong scheme: cold lighting source and wrong blue-cyan shadows.

Correct scheme: cold source of light and warm yellow shadows. reflected light from walls.

Wrong scheme: warm lighting source and wrong warm (yellow-orange) shadows.

Correct scheme: warm source of light and cold blue shadows. also reflected light from walls.

ACTIVITY: Let's give a try!

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