Art course in Paris (2014)→ Week 3

This week was all about tonality, i.e. how dark and light things are. For this we learnt more about action of light and how it helps in revealing nature’s designs. Light changes the way we see a form. It creates dark areas, light areas and reflections.

To know how light or dark an area is we examine its:

1. Planar orientation — planar orientation of a form is useful in knowing which planes would be lit more than the others
2. Proximity to light — by knowing how close or far we are from the source of light we can determine the degree of brightness or darkness.

Let us examine that using a sphere:

For a sphere, the value progression from terminator line to the brightest bright is the same in all directions and it changes at a constant rate. Unlike a sphere, the planes on a body do not all receive equal light. Even the value progression is not constant.

Next were reflected light and highlight planes. Highlight plane changes with our line of sight because it is with respect to a viewer.

Next week, we studied more about the modeling of a form.