How to Draw & Shade Objects & Things of Different Colors with Same Light Source with the Following Drawing & Shading Lesson

OBJECTS OF DIFFERENT COLORS.

A colored object has light and shadow upon it.

The solids represented have all been of uniform white color, and the different lights and darks have been due solely to the effect of light and shade.

Fig. 7 represents two spheres, one white and the other red, and illustrates the fact that there is light and shade upon a dark object just as there is upon a white one. The difference between the light and dark is not as great upon the red sphere as upon the white, but there is the contrast of the same masses of light and dark, and in each mass there are the same gradations as in the corresponding mass upon the white sphere. The red sphere, however, appears lighter at the left part of its contour than nearer the high light. This is due to the fact that the sphere was highly polished, and reflected so much light from the surrounding objects that the effect of the principal light from the window was destroyed by the strong reflections.

The shadows differ in values.

A piece of charcoal is seen in the shadow of the red sphere. It appears much darker than the sphere, and illustrates the fact which students always fail to realize, — that color always shows through the shadows so that the shadows upon objects of different colors and luminosity are always of different values.

Cast shadows reflect dark.

The cast shadows are much sharper and darker near the spheres than farther away, and they reflect upon the spheres so as to darken the parts near the contours.

The high light prominent in a dark object.

The high light is much more noticeable upon the red sphere than upon the white one, for the spheres are polished, and though the red one does not reflect as much light as the white one, its high light in contrast with the dark red color seems more prominent than that of the white sphere, in contrast with white.

A dark color may appear lighter than a light color.

The figure illustrates these principles, but does not give all the relations truly. It is the first to show the most important effect of light and shade upon colors which is to make the light of a dark color often appear lighter than the shadow of a light color.