The da Vinci Shadows
This is a good exercise to get you in the habit of looking at the contrasts of highlights and shadows. Leonardo da Vinci did this as a study at one point, which is where I heard about it. Me and Leo go way back. You'll need your sketchbook, a pencil, a cloth of some kind (I used a t-shirt,) and something to hang it on, and a candle, or the equivalent (I used a Mini Maglite because they have a "candle mode" and because it's always on my belt anyway, cause I'm prepared like ya read about. Word.)
Set up the cloth so it's wrinkled and hanging, not unlike *unnecessary genital reference deleted*. Make sure you do this somewhere where it won't be disturbed, because the wrinkles need to remain stationary. This is also going to take a little time, it's not something you can crap out in half an hour during lunch. make sure you can dim the ambient light a good bit. One desk lamp set up behind you a few feet should work well enough. Overall, the room should be dimly lit.
Now set up your "candle" somewhere to one side of the cloth so the light cast lots of neat little shadows everywhere. Draw that the way you see it, concentrating on the pools of shadow and the way they interact with each other.
Not too hard, right? You can spend as much time on one sketch as you have patience for. When you're satisfied with your sketch, (or at least finished with it; some of us are never satisfied,) it's a good idea to take a break and let your eyes recover a little bit. Drawing in the dim light is hard on the peepers, so get up, walk around in the light, go smoke some crack or punch a cow or whatever it is you twisted hippie-lovin' weirdos do to relax.
When you're ready to go again, all you need to do is resume the same seat so you're looking at the cloth from the same point of view. Now move the "candle" to another position and observe the changing shapes of the shadows. When you've found a good spot, sit your ass back in the chair and draw the cloth again. Repeat this process as many times as you want, moving the light source each time.
Not only is this just good practice in general, but the more you experiment with this exercise and variations of it, the better you'll get at drawing realistic, dynamic shadows on future pictures. What something a little more challenging? Try the same setup, but to one extreme side of the cloth, shine a second light on it from the opposing direction of your initial light source. Lots of new tones to try and capture!
Set up the cloth so it's wrinkled and hanging, not unlike *unnecessary genital reference deleted*. Make sure you do this somewhere where it won't be disturbed, because the wrinkles need to remain stationary. This is also going to take a little time, it's not something you can crap out in half an hour during lunch. make sure you can dim the ambient light a good bit. One desk lamp set up behind you a few feet should work well enough. Overall, the room should be dimly lit.
Now set up your "candle" somewhere to one side of the cloth so the light cast lots of neat little shadows everywhere. Draw that the way you see it, concentrating on the pools of shadow and the way they interact with each other.
Not too hard, right? You can spend as much time on one sketch as you have patience for. When you're satisfied with your sketch, (or at least finished with it; some of us are never satisfied,) it's a good idea to take a break and let your eyes recover a little bit. Drawing in the dim light is hard on the peepers, so get up, walk around in the light, go smoke some crack or punch a cow or whatever it is you twisted hippie-lovin' weirdos do to relax.
When you're ready to go again, all you need to do is resume the same seat so you're looking at the cloth from the same point of view. Now move the "candle" to another position and observe the changing shapes of the shadows. When you've found a good spot, sit your ass back in the chair and draw the cloth again. Repeat this process as many times as you want, moving the light source each time.
Not only is this just good practice in general, but the more you experiment with this exercise and variations of it, the better you'll get at drawing realistic, dynamic shadows on future pictures. What something a little more challenging? Try the same setup, but to one extreme side of the cloth, shine a second light on it from the opposing direction of your initial light source. Lots of new tones to try and capture!
I did this exercise twice for this example, partly because I'm lazy and partly because with the setup where I am at the moment, I didn't have any good way to change the light's elevation. If you can move the "candle" up and down as well as side to side, there's a lot more to get out of this activity.
