Saturday, January 8, 2011

Creating Depth with Shading - Part IV

Using Value to Establish Depth

The first stage of applying color to the quilt top is to establish where the light is coming from. In this case, the light is from the upper left. That helps me to establish where shadows might be and where highlights will be.

The rose hips are rounded by changing value around each hip so that the lighter area is the rounded areas closest to the viewer, and the darker areas are to the back of the hip.

To reinforce the viewer's understanding that the left hip is in front of the right hip, the right hip is slightly darker than the left hip, it has a shadow on the left side caused by the left hip.

The shadow was created using a shade of red, that is red with a little black in it and also a bit of green to dull it just a bit. The use of the complementary color will dull the color it is applied to.


Notice there are also shadows on the upper right leaves to help convey which leaves are on top, middle and bottom.

Next time we will look at how the degree of warmth or coolness effects depth.


Nancy

8 comments:

  1. Nancy, could you tell me what type of paint you are using? I must have missed that part. Thanks again for sharing your process.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sharon, Thanks for reading. Good question.

    I am using inks, not paint, by Tsukineko. They come in several formats, and I use them all. Pre-inked pads, bottles of ink, and dual markers with fine tip and bullet tip ends. All are color fast on fabric after being heat set. Nancy

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is just like watching an artist at work! Wait!! We are watching an artist at work!! I'm just starting a piece and your post(s) are giving me some food for thought as to my fabric choices and how I'm going to use paints/inks/oil pastels for shading. Thanks so much!!! Looking forward to the next post!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is really coming along great can't wait till the next installment!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nancy, did you use some sort of resist to leave the V shapes on the hips unpainted or just used very careful painting???

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks all.

    Jodi, I use freezer paper to create templates for inking the fabric in a stenciling process. The V shaped highlights were cut out of the hip shape and ironed to the fabric before inking the hips. Essentially the freezer paper templates are my resists.

    Again, thanks for reading and the questions.
    Nancy

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the info on the inks you are using Nancy. I've saved it into my ever growing list of things I hope to try someday!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sharon, thanks for reading and the comment. They can be a bit hard to find, but well worth it. I find them most often at quilt shows and on line. Nancy

    ReplyDelete