Cast Shadows: How to Decide between Hard and Soft with Sarah Sedwick

 

Sarah Sedwick (Ep.47) sees a lot of beginning painters create flat, lifeless shadows.

Here’s one easy way to change that.

Shadows in real life are rarely a flat dark shape with uniform hard edges.

To make it easy, Sedwick says to imagine a landing plane.

When the plane is high up in the air, it casts a very fuzzy shadow. It makes no hard edges as it flies overhead.

But what happens when that plane is just about to land?

The edges of the shadow are all quite sharp.

Put it to Practice:

You’re not landing a plane, but your lemon wedge, cup or plate will follow the same pattern of hard and soft.

Your shadow’s edge will be much softer far away from the object and much harder closer in.

Let’s use a tall vase as an example. Imagine the light source is coming from the side.

The cast shadow from the top of the vase is going to have much softer edges than the very bottom of the vase.

Just like the plane higher in the sky is going to have a soft cast shadow. And the plane sitting on the tarmac is going to have a hard one.


 
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