Tonight in my Pencil Drawing Workshop, we will explore light & shadow in our drawings. As a person who is drawn to color, I'm always amazed at how important light and shadow is to creating the illusion of 3 dimensions on a flat piece of paper.
You can see how powerful value is when we turn a color image to black & white. Taking away the distraction of color helps to make the light & shadows apparent.
It took me years to really see shadows, to notice how they often have lighter and darker portions, and to see how light -- in this case, sunlight shining through a window on the left -- bounces off of the white part of the bowl and reflects onto the right side of the two pears on the right.
Here's an illustration of how light falls on a ball.
Seeing shadows on the ball helps us to see light & shadow on more complex shapes.
Remember, you don't have to get all of the values exactly right.
Try giving your drawing 4 to 5 values, from brightest highlights to darkest darks.
Remember; you're not a camera, and you don't need to be perfect! I encourage you to play around with seeing and drawing shadows.
Making a few drawings focusing especially on values will help you to develop the ability to create depth in your artwork.
I find that art created simply for an "assignment" like this feels less precious so it's easier to focus on the process of drawing. You notice more, discover more, and learn more as you draw.
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