Would you say that editing a photo to black and white is cheating on texture analysis?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/u7j11n/would_you_say_that_editing_a_photo_to_black_and/
2022-04-19 23:51
JoaozeraPedroca
so i was browsing the sub and stumbled upon this thread, and an user recommended converting your reference to black and white, that it would be much easier, since you would only have the shadows
but would you consider this cheating, or discerning between what is color, and what is shadow is a important skill?
Uncomfortable
2022-04-20 10:29
While there is nothing wrong with doing so (in the sense that it's not cheating), remember that this exercise (as explained here) focuses not on copying the shadows you see in your reference, but rather identifying the specific forms present in the reference, understanding how they sit in 3d space relative to their surroundings, and then establishing what shadows we feel they'll cast given the lighting scenario in our drawing.
The black and white trick, while useful at times, can cause you to focus more on just copying what you see, transferring 2D information from a 2D reference over to a 2D piece of paper without ever having considered how it is meant to represent things in 3D space.
JoaozeraPedroca
2022-04-20 16:24
thanks for the reply, i guess i will stick with colors, since my brain's instinct will just try to copy the shadows, so to avoid that i'll do it with colors