Painting Workshop: Day 5: Chasing the Light

Well, the final day of the workshop was tough. I was tired and didn't really feel like painting. So, in the morning, we worked on some landscapes thumbnails and worked with the issue of "Chasing the Light".

When working with the morning or evening light, you really have a very short period of time to lay down the masses. The sun is changing angles rapidly and, in our case of being a bright and sunny morning, the clouds kept changing what part of the landscapes were in light and which ones were out of light.

When I working on this massing, I did exactly what a lot of other artists do: chase the light. For my tree, I had correctly laid down the dark and light mass. However, I then worked on the foreground land and background mountains. When I went to work on my tree again, I noticed that the light was on top of the tree... so, I painted that in. I then worked on the road. At that time, I noticed that the light was on the right side of the tree, so I painted that in.... See the pattern?

By the time that I was done, the light on the tree rimmed the entire tree, the road was totally in light and the mountains were in light. So, Karen showed me that you define the light position by massing ALL of the scene objects in the beginning (separate the large masses into light and dark). From there, you are not allowed to touch the masses. You are only allowed to define the area in the masses, so as to not break up the masses and confuse the painting.

The painting should work as a whole, rather than as jigsaw pieces.