Many watercolour artists are preoccupied with the way light plays across the landscape. Light sources and lit objects punctuate paintings, illuminating subjects brightly and providing variety and drama. Watercolours are particularly good at painting softer lighting that glimmers and glows through veils of thin tone. These effects have inspired many of my subjects over the decades.
To portray light effectively across my paintings I deploy a range of paint shades or tones. The strong tonal opposites of black and white make a subject stand out, heightening drama, especially when they are placed in juxtaposition. Softer, blurred light effects on the other hand are intriguing and make a viewer lean in to read them.
DEMONSTRATION Through the Trees
REFERENCE PHOTO
My source photo contains a small section of a woodland below my studio. Study it with me now to identify all the examples of hard and soft lighting. The sun was my light source for the painting. It was located beyond the top left-hand corner of the photo and its light radiated diagonally outwards towards the bottom right corner of the woodland floor, picking out the leaf litter on the ground in irregular, jagged shapes. The sun's location could be found by following the beams of light back
