Exercise 6: CREATING DEPTH WITH TONE

Establishing a light source is crucial to giving dimension to any object. Once you have a form drawn in perspective the next decision is determine the direction of the light source. There are three basic elements of light as it acts on an object.

First, “direct light” refers to the strongest or primary light source. On the cube illustration, below I have given the object a strong clear light source that comes from the upper left and results in a “highlight” or bright spot.

Second, I have indicated a clear shadow side on the cube. This gives the object depth and a sense of drama by creating strong contrasts between light and dark.

Third, I added a “cast shadow” behind the cube to place it clearly on a surface.

There is another important point about creating the illusion of depth and dimension. On all the geometric forms below, I used graduated tones or “transitions” to indicate each surface of the object. This means that I did not simply put a flat tone on each surface. Instead, I allowed the tone to constantly change in value. This is another way to add depth to an object.

On the shadow side of each geometric form you can see “reflected light” near the lower right corner or edge. Light always seeps into shadows causing the tones to lighten in places.

I also allowed the cast shadow to lighten as it moves out and away from the cube. This conveys the effect of “ambient light” bleeding into the shadow. Ambient light is simply light that is bouncing around in an environment causing shadows to vary in tone.

In this exercise I want you to first render a cube, cone or cylinder in tone using graphite pencil. Try to create depth by gradually layering tone with steady strokes. Remember to add the cast shadow.

Next, once this simple shading exercise is complete, we will be rendering a still life provided during class.

The diagrams below show how to locate the highlight, core shadow and cast shadow on each object.