The Illusion of Light

I come across a lot of people in my workshops, especially early stage painters, who are frustrated and feel underwhelmed with their paintings. They are often so focussed on colour that they overlook [or don’t yet understand] that this is only part of the jigsaw that can elevate a painting.

As a landscape artist I am always chasing the light, that is I am not painting light itself but creating the illusion of light on what is a two-dimensional surface. It’s important for me, therefore, that before colour comes value - in a nutshell, there needs to be a dark in order to have the effect of light. If your paintings don’t excite you or you are confused as to why they aren’t ‘working’ then maybe your values are either not light enough or your darks not dark enough. It could be that your values are too close together e.g. a 4 & 6 on a gradient scale of 1-10 will likely have less impact than say using a 2 & 8.

Other techniques that I use for creating the illusion of light are lost and found edges and texture, both of which are parts of the jigsaw that go towards creating a dialogue in my paintings that I am ultimately happy with.