Gurney Book Club Update

My friends and I are nerds so we started a Gurney Book Club, where we meet once a week to go over chapters of James Gurney's Color & Light. Here are some studies I've done over the past few weeks since it started:

Week 1:  analyzing direction, cast shadows (hard/soft), bounce light and rapidity of falloff 

Direct Sunlight: has hard cast shadows, soft form shadows, tends to be warm with blue fill light from the sky (if outside) with warm bounce light from the ground

Electric Lighting - commonly incandescent (red/orange) or fluorescent (yellow/green), forms soft cast shadows because of the radiating light source (depending on distance)

Candlelight - yellow/orange, a weak light with a rapid falloff (inverse square law), often has a halo in the darkness. Flame parts in order are: blue > dark zone > luminous > non-luminous

Week 2:

The Form Principle: Reviewed the kinds of light sources I've studied so far but applied them to the Form Principle, the general pattern of light and shadow on a matte/Lambertian object. What's really helping me is thinking about every surface as a source of illumination--so even shadows aren't darkness they're just the effect of weaker sources of illumination.

This last one was the hardest! I'm also taking Sam Nielson's Colour & Light Schoolism class, so this was an assignment for the second week, we were not allowed to use reference! 

Week 3:

Three-Quarter Lighting: Most Renaissance portraits are painted this way, with the light at 45 degrees to the model (why it's called "Rembrandt lighting". This way both eyes are illuminated, and light reaches most of the visible form. A small triangle of light usually is seen on the cheek farthest away from the light source.

Frontal Lighting (Waterhouse study): Apologies to Waterhouse--frontal lighting while seemingly more boring than 3/4 lighting can help a silhouette read better from a long way off (emphasizes the 2D design over the 3D) and shows off the local colour/pattern

Half Shadow (The Fall study): super dramatic form of lighting, and depending on how soft or hard the shadow edge is it can suggest to the viewer how close or far the object casting the shadow is.     

Week 4:

Contre Jour (Ryan Lang Study): A fancy name for backlighting, where the subject blocks out the light (usually a bright sky or an illuminated doorway*). The light is such a strong presence that it becomes an active presence, surrounding the object. The silhouette is emphasized, and colours tend to lose their saturation. *best not to go to 100% white

Edge Lighting (Another! Ryan Lang Study) : Seems to be a great way to pull an object out from the background, but usually requires a very strong (or very close) light source. It does occur naturally when the sun is low and shining toward the viewer. **The width of the light edge depends on the size of the plane

Light From Below: usually associated with theatre or fire, tends to distort the features and give a sense of eeriness

Spotlighting: great for drawing the viewer's attention, used to be used frequently in classical cinema - "eye lighting"