HOW TO PAINT LIGHT
I teach students to paint and draw light. I am also a lighting specialist. My fascination with light encompasses not only the commercial and retail aspect, but also the artistic one. Once drawing and painting skills are developed to the point where students can accurately write what they see, the creation of light and shadow is studied and the faithfully delineated subject emerges in a world of space and volume.

LEARNING TO SEE
Basically, the representation of light and shadow is achieved by using light and dark colors in painting and tonal gradations in drawing. For a beginning student, this often requires some visual skills. First, I tell the student that what she sees needs to be converted into a two-dimensional vision that she can translate to a two-dimensional surface like a canvas or sketchbook page.

POWERFUL GRIDS
Viewing objects in two dimensions can be done in a number of ways. The easiest (and most proven) is to build a grid in front of the subject, which could be real objects, a photo, or an image. The easiest way to do this is by holding a pencil vertically and horizontally against the observed objects, comparing their shapes to the vertical and horizontal lines of the pencil.

Another time-tested method is to literally build a grid into a glass or plexiglass plate and place that grid in front of objects. Now, the viewed objects intersect many squares (depending on how big or small the squares are in the grid). Each quadrant (square) of the grid can be painted or drawn independently and by completing the entire grid, the composition of the objects is finished to compose an accurate image of the objects.

Light and shadow are more easily distinguished and created using this grid method. The way objects are illuminated can be defined on paper or canvas by observing and recreating the light and shadow at play in each quadrant. By achieving this by shading and highlighting, lighting and thus volume is created, the illusion of three-dimensional space is created, which is reborn on a two-dimensional surface.

EARLY LINE AND COLOR
Accuracy, as well as light and shadow, were not always the motivation behind artful imagery rendering. Before the Renaissance, works of art in Europe represented objects (figures, landscapes, buildings) in flat space. There were no lights and shadows. The figures were outlined and colored in a very coloring-book-like style. These images translated well into stained glass and mosaics. Its simplicity of line and color contributed to the strength of the iconography, often of religious significance.

TERRESTRIAL LIGHT
With the discovery of perspective, space and volume became important to artists, as well as the representation of light and shadow. Symbolic icons and images described by lines gave way to representations of illuminated space. In perspective, objects move back and forth in a fully visually believable two-dimensional space. Augmenting the receding and advancing figures with directional lighting and shadows added to the believability, creating a world that the eye could explore as a simulated, illuminated three-dimensional environment.

GOLD LEAF TO EARTHLY LIGHT
Spiritual light, the vehicle of infinity, was often expressed through the use of gold leaf in medieval altarpieces. The warm, glowing, reflective surface behind the religious figures imbued the work with a rich and reassuring statement: the glory of heaven and the power of God. An earthier light replaced gold leaf in the Renaissance. The spirit figures were bathed in sunlight and shrouded in shadows. The light that illuminated the humble shepherds was the same light that shone on Jesus and his followers.

REPEAT STORY
I find it interesting that the journey a beginning student of drawing or painting undertakes often replicates the historical transition from the medieval use of line and color style to the Renaissance application of illuminated space and volume. And, with more advanced students, his journey often continues to echo the contemporary return to line and color, the preference to represent flat, shallow space and solid color.

I find this reassuring. The art world is wide open, brimming with many styles, images, materials, and skills. For today’s artist, everything is available to be used for a creative purpose. The entire story, as well as the latest technological/digital images, are ready to be researched and developed.