I attended another of Chris Koning’s online drawing workshops at lunchtime, to brush up.

She explained the concept of light logic:

• Highlight – the brightest light
• Cast Shadow – caused by the object blocking the light and so the darkest dark
• Reflected Light – dim light bounced back up from light on the surface
• Crest/Form Shadow – shadow which lies on the crest of a rounded form between highlight and reflected light

When drawing we are not interested in contrast, but in value ie what something looks like against something else.

‘The Artist’s Mother’, Georges Seurat, 1883

This drawing by Seurat is made up of lots of different areas of tone. The parting in the hair is not a definite line; it has been created by different areas of tonal value. There are no harsh lines anywhere and there is very little contrast in the image. It is Seurat’s flawless light logic which allows us to create the rest of the information ourselves.

We then did a quick 10 minute exercise. We lightly shaded in a rectangle. Then we were shown a blurred image and told to fill in the darkest areas and then use an eraser to show the lightest. We then had to fill in the rest of the tonal values in the knowledge that nothing else will be as dark or as light as the existing areas of tone.

Chris then inverted the image and made it clearer:

It was a helpful reminder not to ‘see’ what I’m drawing and thereby create an expectation, but just to see shapes of tone, and to start from the general, keeping in mind the relationships between areas in the whole of the composition, and then move towards the specific.