Hi, in this lesson you will learn how to choose pictures for your artwork. So when you take pictures, please consider three elements. The first one is color. The second one is the light, and the third one is composition. When you set up a still life, the most important thing is to look at your lights and strong shadows. To set up a simple feel life at your home.

All you need is a small lamp and the place where you could put your still life. In this image, you can see the basic breakdown between the light and the shade. highlight is the lightest part on your subject. Middle Dawn is the tones you see between the light and the shade, a form shadow See it's close to the edge of the subject, and it is the darkest area on the subject. And then there is reflected light, which is the light that gets reflected from the surroundings. And the cast shadow is simply a shadow that gets cast from the object.

And let's look at this terminology in the actual still life. In this setup, you can see the highlight the form shadow, the reflected light, lots of reflect that light and the cast shadow. Let's look at the grapes. The highlight a very light form shadow almost unnoticeable. The reflected light, the cast shadow, let's look at the cups here. The form shadow is very strong.

One thing that you must remember is that a form shadow sits on the object itself. And you always must find that when you draw, if you don't put that in the object that you're drawing is going to look flat. Because shadows are also important because they give the physical presence to the object that's not floating in space. Here the form shadow is very strong and it looks great and the reflected light looks Orange. Orange comes from the table being reflected back into the cup. When they look at people or plastic or glass in this case, we are observed the same phenomenon of light and shade.

Let's look into the art And notice the light, the form shadow, the reflected light and the cast shadow. Now, look at this image and find the highlight the middle dawn the form shadow and the cast shadow. When they look at glass it it has a different formula to convey realism and three dimensional quality. We are going to look at it in later demonstrations. Though Don't forget to use backgrounds and boxes for your stage photography at home. If you don't want to buy a light box, it's totally possible to make a very simple setup next to your window.

Just make sure that you get natural light from your window and just pay attention how light changes during They use colorful but plain matte matte boards fabric or paper as your choices. To put in the background try to create contrast meaning that if your subject is dark, make the background light. And if your subject is light, make the background dark. This way, the result is always beautiful, and you get a very nice natural directional light coming from the window. This is this still live shot. In these lighting conditions where I set up the light box right next to the window.

You can clearly see the form shadow on the objects which is very important to convey realism. In this image of oranges. You can study the breakup between the light and the shade. Once again And then this finish drawings, you can now see my idea of developing the three dimensional form. Because drawing in colored pencil is so slow, we have to rely on photography. It's actually a very good skill to learn photography on your own, because it helps you develop your originality or vision.

You also learn to focus on subjects that are important to you feeding on the backgrounds. Photography also helps you to see the lighting conditions and how they affect the same subject at different times of the day. The main disadvantage of photography is that it flattens out the form if you don't have enough experience a drawing from life. It's big Timing very difficult to put the absent information back into your drawing. Also, cameras make their own choices. Because when we paint from life, we can actually rely on our own sense of light and atmosphere.

And that camera has its own vision of what to capture and what to leave out. You've got to have good camera and good lens to produce a high quality image. But that's not necessarily today, the latest iPhones doing amazing job. All you have to do is to learn the skill of composition and design and pay attention to the light. If you don't want to deal with photography, you can always go online and find the images that would be inspiration For you to draw, I often go to pixabay. And you'll see a bunch of images from that website mixed with my images.

Finding the right light or understanding what that actually means is a daunting task for most beginners in art. I remember how much I struggled to understand and figure out what would make a good picture. Your goal of shooting in the right lighting conditions is to beautify your subject, and to bring the best out in it. Just ask yourself, what attracts you to the subject itself. A lot of times, it could be a very specific texture or color, or maybe transparency, or design or a pattern of light and shade that you see. And then you just need to figure out how You can highlight that a most attractive quality in your photography, and what light would would match it best, light direction and shadows play a very big role in making the objects turn 3d.

Very shallow depth of field allows you to capture your object in a sharp focus, blurring the rest of the image. And that's how you get a very solid background that supports your focal point. It makes it easier to draw subjects that are in focus and your while your background space is out of focus and remains soft. Always think what she'd like to focus on and make it your priority when you start shooting pictures. Another thing is just to keep it simple. The There is no need to set up elaborate compositions.

If you're just starting out, focus on just one shape, one color one object to begin working on your piece. Also use negative space as a design element. The tone and color of your background affects the edges and creates abstract shapes. If you're a beginner, it's better to stick to plain background, which isolates your subject and brings it forward even more. As you advance you can start laying this the color and complexity of your negative space as well. By comparing these two images, which one do you think makes a stronger composition like in the first image, the background is variable Bz, while the second image is much stronger because the background is removed, and you can focus on roiling the glass itself.

The light can be either warm or cool. In the beginning, it may be very difficult to spot the difference. But if you ask yourself if it's yellowish or bluish, it might make more sense to you. For instance, in this picture, you can see that the shadows are actually bluish, they're not gray, they're bluish gray, and the light itself is very warm. This helps you to make decisions in picking your colors and the quality of light is very important and natural light is the most beautiful light we can get as artists. picture has a beautiful cool light captured on the leaves.

And you can also notice that the shadows are much warmer. In this image of the waves, you see a play of warm and cool light and parts of the waves have very blue color, while the other parts of the waves are golden. This is very important to capture in your drawings. The change in color, temperature determines how good your picture is going to be. But sometimes when the light gets very diffused, could be good for portrait photography, or a landscape to create a mood and atmosphere. But it's very difficult to draw specific objects shot in this kind of light.

It happens mainly because diffused light gives you various soft shadows and highlights, and it's very difficult to reproduce subtle transitions in tones in your artwork. So when you just start out, it's much better to start drawing from pictures that have stronger lights and shadows. And as you develop as an artist you will be able to see and to draw pictures with subtle light. So to choose the right photograph, you have to look for your images on your computer. This one has nice colors, but it's not great compositionally, so maybe I could crop it to make it more interesting. This is a nice image of current nation.

It has bright colors and the background is blue. The flower itself stands out. However, I don't like how the light plays on it. If you look carefully you'll see that each petal doesn't have much variation and I look for strong lights and darks to draw the image. I like this flower alot because it has nice textures and also look at these gorgeous colors that you can depict them colored pencil. This bouquet is okay compositionally because it has a central line and then a diagonal line goes to the right.

However, I don't like the light on it. It makes it difficult to draw when you don't see definite lights and darks on the image and also the background seems to be very busy and stuff tracks from the flowers themselves. This is a nice compose photograph. I do like it. It has strong composition. This is the center line, and it goes at the diagonal.

It has nice soft, sharp shadows behind the flowers. It also has nice variation in shadows on its petals, the light shines from the left. This is a picture of orchids, it seems to be very busy. The background subtracts from the orchids themselves. You can compensate for that. And for instance, don't draw the background but focus on the orchid.

But the orchids themselves also look very complex and they're not great to draw. For the beginners. This is a beautiful image. You can draw it however it's gonna take a long Time to finish it in colored pencils. So maybe if I correct that, somehow zooming into just a couple of flowers would make it easier to draw. It's not a great picture of roses because here you can't even make out the shapes and the light is unclear in the images Well, that's a nice image.

The background is simple and cool. The leaf itself is nice and has warmer color. Finally, I've decided to draw this picture because it has a simple background. The petals have nice light and shade parts are on when you're drawing colored pencils Alliance must be a very nice thing. In light, that's the reason why you have to draw on a separate sketch paper first to work out the shapes, and then you transfer that image onto your final drawing paper. If you sketch on your final paper, you leave a lot of residue and lines that are going to reappear in your drawing when you start shading in colored pencil.

Before it begins sketching, I look at the basic shapes of the flower. And here I can see a circle and then there is one oval and then there is another circle. I begin sketching the image by placing the placeholders for my flower which means that I don't go beyond this area. I marked my top and sides. And now I'm drawing the circle. And here I'm going to have the stem.

So, I'm going to play this the image inside of that circle is a circle and then I have the oval shape. So this is the envelope of my flower. Now I'm going to break it down to smaller shapes that found this bigger shape. It's helpful to look at the direction of each petal before you sketch it out. The direction of this fellow goes this way. The direction of this petal goes this way, the direction of each parallel here repeats direction that I see in the image.

This is the direction of this petal and how you can copy the direction first and then draw the path all around this line it might be easier to sketch the outside petals first and then complete the inside of the flower. So as you can see, I start from basic shapes. I look at the direction of each petal, and then I sketch out the shape of the petal based on the direction that's taking. And I also draw through the shapes, even though some of it is not going to be seen an array It helps me to establish the correct shape. When I'm done, this is the very first outline, I begin refining each shape from start to finish. So I'm looking at this pedal first, and I'm erasing the lines that I don't need anymore and I'm keeping the ones that makes sense to me.

And so I go like this petal by petal to make sure that I ended up having one clean outline that I would be able to transfer later on. It's important to understand that and then draw the barrel base Six shape of a flower, drawing from general to specific, getting the overall shape first and then breaking it down to smaller shapes and patterns should be done every time. Most flowers are characterized by shapes within shapes. They consist of layers that overlap one another. Look at this image to find the basic shapes. Notice that every line has its own direction and the size and the curvature.

So you need to copy that into your sketch. Now I look at the black and white image and I look at this separation between the light and the dark and I put this separation on my drawing as well. So when I start shading the same color, I will start from the darker shapes that I see found within every petal. And so I just go on like this and call the the shape of the dark that I see in every cell. My next step is to transfer the image As a beginner, it's okay to draw from someone else's pictures but ask for permission to use them. But as you grow as an artist, you shouldn't draw from any copyrighted material, but create your own photographs and references to use for your artwork.

One of the reasons is that you cannot apply for shows if you choose to draw from someone else's picture. As an artist, you have a vision that you want to scroll through your artwork and that you cannot use someone else's photograph. Also there are a lot of times when you have when you have no personal attachment to the photograph that she used. But when you go out and shoot your own pictures, you develop your vision as an artist. You get better in your composition and color. You can transfer images in several ways.

One, you can just use the window light to transfer the image. So basically you'll place the image on your window. Tap the corners with the masking tape and then place your drawing people on top of that. And then you use your HP graphite pencil to simply transfer the outline. Another way would be buying a light box and then just using that to transfer the image, or you could use white or black transfer paper to transfer the image onto your drawing paper. To transfer the outline you could either use to just sketch and place it on the window and trace the image onto your paper.

Or you could just use your photograph printed out at the scale you wanted it to be. Use the masking tape to secure the corners and land. Use your fine drawing paper places. The way you want it to be placed. compositionally secure the corners so it doesn't fly and then use your HP pencil to Trace the image. You don't learn drawing by tracing images, so I would highly recommend drawing every single day.

So you will become more proficient sketching out shapes. It's very easy to trace the image the way I just showed you, but it doesn't give you the skill necessary to create the complex shapes you will want to create eventually, you must draw on a hard surface. So I use the other side of the drawing pad to do just that. So I placed it on my table, and then I placed my paper on top of that. And so I'm ready to draw. Whenever you save, you must keep your colored pencils.

Very nice and sharp. You wouldn't be able to create the detail that you need or to make the outline. You definitely need to have very sharp pencils. Copy along the lot so far. Let's meet again in our next session.