Speaking of Art Blog

Lately I’ve been enjoying finding things in nature to photograph. It’s a side interest I’ve had for a long time, and I’ve stepped up my photography game recently because, with the wonderful cameras out on the market now, photographing just about anything is that much easier.

One of the things I’ve started snapping pics of is the moon in the evening sky. I don’t even use a tripod. I brace my arms on top of my front porch railing, hold my breath, and shoot. As I reviewed my shots recently, I couldn’t help noticing something that I learned from an art instructor several years ago. Notice how, in this image of the moon, the most detail and the sharpest light/dark contrast are along the edge of what is visible of the moon’s surface? That is an important observation.

When an artist goes to render a shape in their painting or drawing, where should they put the most detail and the sharpest light/dark contrast? In the darkest area? Obviously not, because you wouldn’t be able to see it. In the most well-lit area? No, not there either, although when you think about it, why wouldn’t the most detail and contrast be seen best in the well-lit area of an object? Because the light tends to wash out the more subtle shadowed places, that’s why. The most detail and the sharpest light/dark contrast need to go where the light is in transition from the lightest area to the darkest area.

In many ways a 2-D artist is a magician. They take a flat surface, and by using an art medium that adheres to the flat surface and is rendered flat itself, they create the illusion of three dimensional space. How do they do this? Well, they take their cue from nature and make their well-lit areas washed out looking, they make their really dark areas really dark with no details or contrasts, and they save their most detailed places and sharpest light/dark contrasts for those areas that are in between the lightest lights and the darkest darks, in the transition area of a shape. If everything were rendered with the same amount of detail and contrast all over the artwork, it would appear flat. The magic trick would have failed.

Here are two pastel paintings of mine that illustrate my point. In the first one, November Morning, I needed to create the illusion of a cylindrical tube filled with bird seeds.  Notice where the most detail and contrast are – along the middle section of the tube, NOT along the lightest, left hand, vertical edge nor along the slightly darker, right hand edge. If I had drawn every single seed in that tube with as much detail and contrast as its neighbor, that whole tube would have appeared flat. But with only hints of detail and light/dark contrast along the two edges, the tube appears to curve around. Magic.

In this second pastel, Water Garden, take a look at the leaf that I’ve circled. Notice how there is virtually no detail along its left edge where it is in the shadow of another leaf. Then notice how the detail is completely washed out in the parts that stick up to the viewer and are in the most light. Now look at all the detail and contrast in the rest of the leaf, the part that is not the darkest nor the lightest area. That’s where the detail and contrast go.

And so I’ll continue to take my cue from Mother Nature, with ready illustrations in the moon or even a lowly lily pad. Both show me the correct way to perform my magic on paper and trick my viewer into thinking my subject matter is 3-D. Ta-da!