I was reading through a "fine-art" how to sketch book, and it said a little about lighting, but I was more inspired by the illustrations they looked quite nice! So I figured I'd challenge myself to doing more directional lighting.
I tend to shade in the same direction all the time, I get confused when it's any other way so I'm attempting to shade a similar object 3 different ways!


I can't copy the EXACT same thing twice but this is going to be my "objects".
I'm debating between colored pencils or staying black and white...
Drawn on a 12X18 inch paper in a sketch book, the paper in this book is a bit textured.



So it's Basically a potted plant in a pot, I'm hoping I can do this convincingly!

Completed!
I did the first one w/o thinking, I think it shows as not well planned, the second one I think is my favorite of the 3, the 3rd I just had no clue what I was doing. I decided on color, which was a bit hard, and I think greys might have been a little easier but I don't think it would have had as much contrast if I did in grey, but no worries! I have another practice project coming up! - I picked out Yellow, Green, and Purple! I like that combination, and I figured if I picked out a color scheme it would help me keep track!



On 2 and 3 I started off by marking off the shadows with a black prismacolor and lighting shading it in, then moved in with the greens on the leaves, the vase is just bad, I already know it! I had no clue how to shade it convincingly.

Pencils:
10 Prismacolors
8 Crayola
HB #No 2 pencil - Sketching

Other:
3/0 paint brush
White craft acrylic paint
12X18 inch Sketch pad, slightly textured paper, 60lb
Colored Blender Pencil

CnC welcomed! I'm n00b with shadow directions.

Tip of the week; 4: Playing with Lighting!

~ God Bless ~

~ Moko

mokonafan: looks like another great exercise that i should do too but probably won't . good luck on the project! i'd suggest greyscale first, so you can really focus on the light and shadow, then make an attempt with colours - if you have a good pencil sketch to look at it's so much easier to get the lighting right when you paint in colour, at least i always think so.

Nice idea. If I were you, I would stick to black and white for a while so that you can focus on the positions of the light and shadows until you feel more confident. Colour will distract you at this stage.

Nicely ninja'd AnMal!

Oddly for me, I find grey-scale harder! But keeping track of using the same colors would also be hard....
Puft! Decisions decisions!



LoL a project I hope I won't get bored of myself so we're in the same boat. xD

Finished!


Information in the first post!

@GnuTux: I tried to post and I got a 500 error then went back and copied the post just in case....When I looked to see if it posted anyway it did! I don't know what that was but just figured you'd like to know.

Moko - read some stuff on light and shadow and your results look very good to my eye, the shadow seems a bit uncomfortable in the third image but that doesn't necessarily mean its wrong.

mokonafan: you're doing great, moko! the play of light and shadow in these is lovely to look at whether it's correct or not. when it comes to the correctness of light and shadow i suppose i'm no expert, but since i'm used to sketching from real life i think a lot about them. i've been thinking that in your second image (which is my favourite too, for the beauty of the shadowplay) you would probably get deeper shadows from the leaves and you won't see the shadows of the flowers. or is the vase partly transparent? in that case you can make me believe anything, i always get confused with partial transparency ! i think the shadow cast by the vase in the third picture looks a bit off, i would have drawn it in the same angle as the light comes in from. the lighting and shading in itself in all three pictures is beautifully done, though, moko!
if you want to get the light and shadow thing under control it's a really good exercise to sketch objects you have around you - forget about stuff like shape and colour and just sketch dark and light parts of things. and no need to be hard on yourself and sketch in greyscale either - i sketched light and shadow with fuchsia pastel crayons on pastel pink paper just to keep my eyes happier .

I think you have done an excellent job Moko.

If anyone is interested in a brief post about doing this exercise you can go to the link below!
Tip of the week; 4: Playing with Lighting!




I agree on that shadow, I was like noooooooo!! *horror music* - I think it should have been a bit more forward.

Thank you for the comment.



It's not transparent, but I suppose I see what you mean! I wasn't sure what to do and I wanted to add depth. xD
I'm not good at duplicating something, and even worse at drawing something that I didn't think up.
Maybe I should practice that next.

I'm glad you liked these!





Thank you!