Uncomfortable

2022-02-11 17:08

Given that we're only drawing cast shadows (with one exception I'll mention in a moment), there are no soft shadows. Cast shadows are generally hard edged (that isn't always true, but it's close enough to the case to make soft shadows not a problem in this situation).

The exception is where we have students attempt crumpled paper, because generally we look at the crumpled paper, pick a "threshold" beyond which anything darker is drawn in full black, and anything lighter is drawn as full white. While this doesn't fall into the whole cast shadow thing, it has incredible benefits because it encourages students to be much bolder and more decisive with their "shadow shapes", and I found that having them do that first yields better overall results for the others.

Another point in which the lesson can be a bit more clear (and this'll be fixed when my overhaul of the material reaches Lesson 2, for now I'm still dealing with Lessons 0 and 1), is that the cast shadows we draw are not pulled right out of the reference image. We do not simply observe the reference and then draw the shadow shapes we see. This would be a transference of information from a 2D source (the photo) to a 2D target (the drawing), and at no point would we ever think about how the things we're drawing (the textural forms themselves) exist in 3D space.

Instead, we look at our reference in order to observe and identify each individual textural form that is present there, one at a time. For each such form, we seek to understand how it sits in 3D space and how it relates to its neighbouring surfaces, so we can then take that understanding and use it to design/invent the cast shadows we feel they should be casting on those surroundings. These shadow shapes we draw may well be present in the reference, but if we bind ourselves strictly to that reference, we rob ourselves of the ability to actually modify the lighting situation.

This ability to modify the lighting to produce either areas of greater darkness, or areas with smaller shadows, is integral to producing the gradient. We draw as though there is brighter, stronger light on the right side, which burns those shadows away, and very little of that light reaches the forms all the way on the left, causing the cast shadow shapes to expand and merge with one another, creating more darkness. It's the implicit markmaking explained in the lesson, and the fact that we're drawing cast shadows and not the forms themselves, which allows us to do this. The forms that are present do not change, but the way in which they are represented does.

That's why we have to focus on spending our time observing the reference on understanding how those forms exist - not on merely copying what we see.