Advancing with Watercolor: The Beauty of Shadows “Dappled Sunlight”

Week 1 -Dappled Shadows

For many of you this might seem like a strange topic to focus on as an artist - The subject of shadows that is. It is a great subject for the artist as it asks us to look closely at something we normally skim over or pass by. As we move into the seperate projects I am sure many of will look at their world  - especially the world of shadow in a more thoughtful way - finding a beauty in the transparency and shape- edge and pattern.

As a by product we will learn more about light and how the two work together - Light and Shadow.

Our first subject in this series is dappled shadows - a subject we observe everywhere - especially in the summer months

The scene I have chosen is one close by - I can recommend this for you as you begin your homework - the best subject matter is often that which is close by and familiar - largely because you can observe it directly - photographs are helpful and inspiring but often lack the contrast we see especially with shadows.

Dappled Shadows

A couple of things are helpful in deconstructing the dappled shadows, or shadows that fall on the ground, or any plane in fact. Not only are the shades somewhat reflective of the the object,,A shadow from a balloon will reflect the shape of the balloon, the shadow also describes the plane of the ground

We can see this in the Notan below

Notan

A notan had its roots in Japanese culture and describes a design principle  of light and dark. I find a few minutes designing with this idea helpful in understanding the complex part of any subject

In todays subject we have so many leaves and foliage in our subject. Designing the notan helped me to destining background from mid ground making my approach with color easier

The Tonal study builds on this idea using more tonal and edge variations to create a more complex image - but 0 the foundation is the same

The notan plays a big role in creating a simple approach with color also