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 into 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 she needs to convert what she sees into a two-dimensional vision that she can translate onto a two-dimensional surface like a canvas or sketchbook page.

POWERFUL GRIDS
Seeing objects in two dimensions can be done in several ways. The easiest (and most tested) 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 with the vertical and horizontal lines on the pencil.

Another time-tested method is to literally build a grid on a plate of glass or Plexiglas and place that grid in front of objects. Now the viewed objects intersect with many squares (depending on how big or small the squares are on 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 with 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 through shading and highlighting, lighting and therefore volume is created, the illusion of three-dimensional space is created, which is reborn into a two-dimensional surface.

EARLY LINE AND COLOR
Precision, as well as light and shadow, were not always the motivation behind the rendering of artful images. 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 style much like a coloring book. 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.

GROUND 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 backwards and forwards in a fully visually believable two-dimensional space. Augmenting the receding and advancing figures with directional light and shadow completed the believability, creating a world that the eye could explore as a simulated, illuminated three-dimensional environment.

GOLD LEAF IN 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. A more earthly light replaced gold leaf in the Renaissance. The spirit figures were bathed in sunlight and shrouded in shadow. The light that illuminated the humble shepherds was the same light that shone on Jesus and his followers.

HISTORY REPEATED
I find it interesting that the journey a beginning drawing or painting student 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 by echoing the contemporary return to line and color, the preference for depicting 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 use for a creative purpose. The whole story, as well as the latest technological/digital images, are ready to be researched and developed.