This pesky light illusion ruins so many beginner drawings!
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- Опубліковано 23 чер 2020
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I’ve always thought of optical illusions as a bit of mind-bending fun. It wasn’t until I started researching this video that I realised that these illusions have a massive impact on us when we’re learning to draw and paint.
We don’t see light or colours in isolation, they are always in context. Our eyes adjust to different lighting, and our brains process light and colour information in real-time to help us understand it more clearly. However, those same processes that help us process the world also distort our understanding of what we’re really seeing.
It would be useful to be able to turn off all our automated processing of light and colour information and just see the rays as they “really are”, but unfortunately that isn’t possible. Instead, we can retrain our eyes and brains to see with more clarity, and we can use powerful techniques like squinting and do simplified value studies.
I hope you enjoy these fascinating topics as much as me!
Checkerboard illusion credit: Original: Edward H. Adelson, vectorized by Pbroks13. / CC BY-SA (creativecommons.org/licenses/...) - Навчання та стиль
My last painting teacher spent like a whole year training me to see this. Your lightest shadow should never be lighter than you darkest light, and your darkest light should never be darker than your lightest shadow!
What if there's a multiple light sources/strong rimlight?
Aren't those 2 statements exactly the same. I'm confused!
They are the same, but you use both depending on what you’re working on. As you work on your shadows you should be conscious about marking darker than the darkest light, but when you work on the light you should be conscious about marking lighter than your lightest shadow, a mindset for each job
Thanks for making this video. I love the reasons behind WHY things don’t look right.
Glad it was helpful Mallory!
You are such a great teacher. You seem genuinely patient, compassionate and kind. A great thing to be towards those often frustrated hopeful artists with huge mountains to climb.
thanks that means a lot!
“The lightest dark is darker than the darkest light”
- Proko
Lol yeah nobody had heard of that before proko..
It's a rule, its not from Proko, he just uses it. :D
@@CollectorDuck Why so snarky?
He is not saying thay Proko made the statement for the first time.
@@vampirethespiderbatgod9740 I'm not snarky. It's just a silly thing to attribute to him. It's like saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away - Barack Obama" It's pretty close to common knowledge and adding that as a quote by someone just looks hilarious. Lighten up champ.
Oh god! More confused now. I thought kenzo said the 2 are the exact same value.
You are so good at teaching, Kenzo. Thank you! You explain things so well partly because you’re learning as you go. The fact that you so openly admit to how dumbfounded you are by that last image is terrific. Thank you.
"The Interaction of Color" by Josef Albers is a great resources on this topic. Every artist should own a copy of it...
I’ve been reading recently. Incredible book
Thank you for this comment!
thanks for the link... great content
dood you talk from heart ... was so natural like a conversation.
I’m laughing so hard, just a week ago I went down a color rabbit hole, lost my grip on reality and I’ve still not quiet recovered😂
i watched a video about how magenta isn't real, which seemed crazy. then i found out this idea had been debunked and felt relieved, but then when I read the debunking article, it turns out it's not that magenta isn't real, it's that all colours aren't real?!!
An existential crisis relating to your perception of the world put wiht joyful music, I love it
Thank you for explaining this concept, and sharing your passion for art
Fascinating Kenzo. You've really opened my eyes. Thanks.
Thanks a lot for this helpful video, Kenzo! (And for many other of your helpful videos, of course.) I thought it so helpful I shared it with my group of painting-students because it really shows very well the importance of value. Thanks again! And please keep up your good work!
this was brilliant . also love how expressive you get . Great explaination
Oh my goodness, your channel is underrated, this is the type of explanation on light I have been looking for thanks!
This is so valuable for me as a beginning artist. Thank you!
Thank you for this journey through light and color, to which you invite us. Is awesome
Thank you very much Kenzo
I recently discovered your channel and it is immensely helpful for beginners! Thank you so much :)
Wow, You do make sense. Loved your explanation and props. Thanks for the reminder not to go to far down the rabbit hole. Squinting works but is a skill I'm still working on.
I appreciate that you tried, I know it is hard to explain this sort of things, but you did well
Thank you so much for this, I REALLY struggle with this. I can see that this is responsible for my almost good efforts that never really have that simple clarity of light to dark that I’m after, and probably why my flowers never work out when I try to put shadows on. I will try to keep the principles that you explained so well in mind from now on.
Amazing! Thank you for explaining 🙂
Color is such an interesting but also confusing topic ^^'
Great video, I loved the advice about the rabbit hole at the end 😀
Your lighting in this video is another perfect example of your explanation when squinting and focusing normal. I realised this while testing the theory you mention as I watched haha
This is a really excellent point, very helpful explanation.
Wow!!! Your videos are awesome♡♡♡ I just happened to come across your channel this morning and have learned a LOT on how to depict shadows and light in my paintings. Your way of explaining and giving simple demos to illustrate your point are SPOT ON in making them 'click' in my head. (Like how the form gets lost when you focus on all the subtle value differences (losing the light vs dark idea) by making them more exagerated than they are, etc. )
I love the quiz questions too because it makes me realize misconceptions I didn't even realize I had, causing me to focus on them as you progress through the video. (This video has many great demos and examples. It was gard to believe the strip across the value chart was all the same color. I thought you did it in reverse it something. As simple as some examples may seem, it is critical to think of those concepts we take for granted because our brain just does it for us. Even the example where you showed a compare and contrast of the reflected/bounce off light onto an orange on white vs black cloth. Black absorbs all wavelengths but it is easy to forget to think about it when analyzing and painting what you see. Another great example was the simple, but mind opening demo of your hand with and without your other hand underneath, illustrating how much of a difference that reflected light can make.
Like in psychology, it seems like common sense, but easy to miss if you don't train your mind to think of the 'why' and what I am actually looking at inorder to be able to convey it in a painting.
I have heard the paint coach and many other artusts discuss the same technical concept of getting the value correct, but it still all felt vague getting lost in the art lingo. Rather than reducing things to in the light vs shadow as you did, he would just say "value" and my brain would flash back to that crazy ten+ gray gradient strip, in turn made the whole concept as clear as mud, due to how difficult it can be to determine the value of a color without taking a black and white pic of the object to really determine which subtle value change it matches.
...This video was so eye opening. No wonder fifuring out the correct value right off the bat so hard!! The exact color can look totally different depending on the surroundings, which gets tricky to when you try to paint an interpretation of "what you think you see" rather than how it is in real life. Haha ( You also showing images to contrast a bad vs good vs great drawing due to common misconceptions is super helpful on "why" those frustrating issues constantly come up and how to fix them.
Thanks for the videos!!
Brilliant. Thankyou so much
This is really helpful. Thank you so much for sharing.
I really enjoy your videos - You def have a new subscriber - I have also been going to your older videos and I find a lot of useful information for myself to use!
Good one Kenzo! Questioning the nature of “reality” is good!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
I just want to say, you're one of the best masters in the world. Thank you for sharing your knowledge back into this world. Which shows that you're a good man.
Great video!
The "squint tip" is very good, you can even see the two matching gray values in that illusion.
And here's another tip : if you're on to digital painting or using photos, you can use the Cutout Filter in Photoshop to simplify the value tones.
I adore your lessons
Thank you for this great video!
Thank you thank you thank you ! This is sooooooo helpful !
Thanks so much - glad it was helpful :)
This is a fascinating topic, a lot to think about, thanks!
thank you this is so helpful
The absolute wealth of knowledge contained within this channel never ceases to amaze me. One of the best quality art channels out there. Thank you!
thanks so much Katrina!
any rabbithole about the brain is going to be wide and deep
I don’t understand why you don’t have more subscribers, you’re one of the best channels on UA-cam .
Oh wow, that color thing with the blue and yellow rod thingy blew my mind! I knew that colors are weird and our brains are much weirder but thats totally crazy... Now I want to research that topic more too...
💐 Thank you for sharing your knowledge
I think the words you were looking for were local value versus ambiante light⚘
6:45 I tested this in an image editing application and they're not actually the same exact colour - This is probably due to youtube's video compression system. These two colours are however, both around 135/255 GREY. Yes, both very similar greys, the difference is barely noticeable. One is very slightly blueish and the other very slightly yellowish - You need to literally put pixels next to each other to tell them apart.
Welcome to scientific rabbit hole, Kenzo 8)
hehehe it got way too crazy for me when i started to learn about the cones in the eyes and the different combination of wavelengths you could interpret as yellow
@@lovelifedrawing yeah there is a lot of wonders in it
the live drawing session scheduled for Sun (062820, drawing with confidence) ended early for me. it said the video violated youtube terms of service. I'm not sure why bc we weren't even drawing a nude at that point. but thanks for holding the session. I liked the sumo wrestler pose a lot. this happened also during one of my other drawing channels. a little weird but what the hey.
this is crazy amazing helpful
Oh no - not the dreaded Rabbit hole! Good one
Thank you Kenzo, I am just starting out with colours, so this is extremely helpful ❤️
You are right....squinting is the key...if you squint your eyes on the checkerboard illusion you will see they are the same color.
Hahaha about the last thought in the video... The matrix hit you hard, huh. 😂 lovely video :D
I think it was important to see the apple in dark - food no matter where it is, so that we can see food even when in the shadow.. Interestubg As always sooooo helpful. you are a good teacher.
I can't believe it took this long for a really good video & explanation of this. I've been showing people the cylinder w/ the checker board, & their initial instinct is that I'm lying or trying to full them.
The computer plays a factor because they think it's a computer trick but, obviously it's much easier to show on a computer when you can break it down on to layers.
The way that I overcome those coloring obstacles, is by using a limited palette.
hey Roland yeah i agree it's a great strategy! i will cover value studies and limited palettes in a future series about painting. i kept this one mostly about seeing light and colour
How??
@@goudvisbloem It's easier to keep track of what colors are in a piece when you know how many you're using. For example, I use between 4-6 variations of same color and no more. The reason being, I break color down to only the essentials, so as to avoid some of the confusion Kenzo mentioned.
@@rolandkatsuragi hmmm ...
Sounds like you're ignoring the illusion of 5:02 by simplifying? You see á golden brown colour so you mix something close to this?
Or the grey arm in front of the blue water, it's one thing to use a limited colour palette, but isn't it another for your eye to spot that this is grey and to not choose a darker version of orange?
To me a limited colour palette helps create harmony, I don't know how to see what Kenzo is talking about here ...
@Sarah V Say your limited palette doesn’t have any blue paint. You will naturally have to use this illusion, substituting grey in the cooler areas of your piece. By getting used to using the illusion you get better at recognizing it when you see it. It’s like how you get more awareness of how lines that we see as parallel in the world actually converge after you learn how to use two point perspective.
I love your videos! teach me so much! Thank you! I have a question: in my drawing classes they ask me to make a variety of tone scale, when we simplify the shape by dark an ligth we are simplifying the tones, right? But isn't it important to learn how to apply the tone scale first?
Hm, when you've mentioned that things don't actually have color and it's only our mind's trick, I've suddenly remembered the physical origins of color - different hues derive from the wavelength of the reflected light from the object. In this case blacks are just lack of the reflected light, because the objects wholly "consumes" it. For example, when you turn off the switch in the midnight, the room doesn't actually has colors anymore - these are mostly values of black and grey. Just for the same reason - there's not enough light from the window for the objects to reflect the colors back (plus material consumes it), so it turns out pretty grey-ish!
I hope that makes sense : D Understanding the physics behind the light could definitely help to perceive it artistically.
Hi love life drawing ! Thank you very very much for all your videos, this is so helpfull !
I have a question, is that normal than the video of the recent live has disappears ?
Can we find them on another website ?
Thank you ! ( sorry for my bad english )
*has existential crisis because of color illusion*
Your last statement made me lol I could almost see the cogs churning in your grey matter because I knew you would go there. But thats it; form has no colour, it's an illusion lol
A simple valuefinder (you know, valuescale with small holes cut in every value swatch) can help to combat that chessboard illusion effect.
Also, I wonder if a red thing was placed on top of the gray X?
my struggle with tones in general is that i don't know how to handle the darkest midtones, it feels like i always do the darkest midtones too bright to begin with because i always average out the midtone to be somewhere in the middle of the midtones and so when i go brighter it has less range to go so i try to push darker midtones in but it creates this cascading problem of needing to redefine every form shadow.
That's an interesting topic you're talking about. I think everything that has to do with perception evolves the more you draw. I'm pretty much a beginner but I feel like the more I draw the better I perceive things, for example lines that look like they are straight for me, but are actually at an angle. Is this a common problem when you start drawing? Can you somehow "fix" it?
that's an interesting question Joosti. i agree your observational skills really change as you practise. even your taste in art evolves as you can see more. when you say the lines seemed straight but then were at an angle, do you mean they looked horizontal / vertical and were actually at an angle, or looked straight but were actually curved?
@@lovelifedrawing When I first started (and I still do it) I used reference. I wondered why my reference drawings looked so different in comparison to the original, especially when drawing eyes. Then I drew a horizontal and a vertical line over the original and my perception shifted, because I saw at what angle the lines were, in comparison to the straight horizontal and vertical lines. Same with proportions. I think as a beginner you often tend to compare the length, distance or height in which, eyes, eyebrows, nose etc. are to one another. But by misperceiving it in the first place it can't look right. It's like a chain event. For example, if you draw a head in a 3/4 view and start with the head's shape, get the length of the chin, chinline and the positon of the cheekbone wrong and compare the rest of the face to these misperceived facial features you started with, there is no chance to make it look "right". Another thing I noticed is, that if you trace a picture it is easier to perceive. I think this has something to do with the brains/eyes attempt to see object in a three dimensional way. But when on paper you can just try to give it a three dimensional depth. By seeing how it looks when drawn by yourself, you see it on a 2d surface. If you actually "draw what you see" it gets easier. After all it's always a 2d drawing but you perceive it in a three dimensional way and I guess many people that start drawing, perceive things different and are confused when they try to give it a three dimensional look. Maybe there a different approaches to start drawing, but from a beginners point of view, these are some reasons why many people fail to draw when they are at the start of the journey. Not sure if there is a way around these mistakes ^^
You see the reference, but you don't see your drawing.
So how can you draw what you see?
Haha
Just kidding
But of course there's a way around it, otherwise we wouldn't have so many good artists like Kentaro Miura, Eliza Ivanova, Frazetta,etc
If you want to improve on that topic, you might start studying lines, the basic/primitive forms and perspective.
There's some videos of Peter Han (and many others to that matter) here on UA-cam, just pick the exercises though and beat the devil out of it!
if you're looking at an apple tree and part of it is in sun and part in shade we will still be able to see all the apples because of this mechanism. If you take a photo only part of it would be visible.
I can blur my vision on command, I never thought it would help me to draw
Told me to not go down the rabbit hole about color now I have to go down it. 😩
excellent. never so clearly explained!
Thanks Denyse! Glad you found it useful
At the end you made me laugh-questioning everything by ending up down the rabbit hole. Thanks for the warning! I’m not going there!
Forgot to say-this is SO helpful. Excellent illustrations of how we see and what we do with our interpretation. Thank you!!
That's interesting :0
There are several antidotes, I think. One is looking at ones work from afar frequently, working small, squinting (as you say). Another is using a grey card with a small hole in it to compare two or more areas of the subject without seeing the surrounding values.
I tried to read Chevreul's book. I managed about 3/4 of it. It was terribly over wordy and tedious. A professor has written a paper of about 4 pages which sums up the theory succinctly. I would avoid Chevreul's book.
Do you have any online subscribed course. Pl let me know. Willing to take if any such thing is available.
Hey - we do for figure drawing. It will run next time in October. it's awesome - be sure to get onto our newsletter to find out when enrolment opens :)
I heard about these illusions, but I never thought about how it interferes with learning to draw. Perhaps the reason why in drawing at the very beginning they separate the shadow part from the illuminated one is precisely to avoid the fragmentation of perception. In fact, in the methods of the classical school, which have been practiced for centuries, all these problems have already been solved. Now we can rethink them and figure out why they are the way they are.
yeah keeping clear about your dark areas versus your light areas is a great habit to get into!
The way I’ve dealt with this as an oil paint is to think in terms of ‘local colour’ but not in the traditional way of one colour that exists absent light effects. When I am painting, I start with my darkest darks and from their, every other value in my painting is done in relation to the darkest darks by area. So every value, I relate to the darkest dark in certain area of the painting, meaning all of my values end up being relational
*there
But what about the warmth/coolness of a colour?
It's funny i only started enjoying these videos the moment i grasped some things. Before that it all just seemed so complicated
Hello Kanzo, I had 1 problem with the way you saud to hold pencil while drawing ( U told to hold it below the wrist on top to exercise smooth curves coming from shoulders)
But doimg it that way applies a lot of force on the pencil end, and my pencil is breaking a lot, and I have to sharoen them every minute.
Please enlighten me on this issue.
This is you latest video thats why I am reporting here.
I was thinking abou it so hard and this is the conclusion I manage to get.
__" If there is a highlight in the shadow area, that should never be lighter than the shadow that you see in the highlights area. "__
please correct me if I am wrong!
It's pretty much that. although you might not call the light bit of a shadow area a 'highlight' and you might not call the darker bit of the light area a 'shadow', but basically that is right. the lightest bit of the dark area is still darker than the darkest bit of the light area!
@@lovelifedrawing woah, so I got the idea correct excepts the terms. Thank you so much!
Kenzo, the rabbit hole discovery that there's no such thing as colour outside of your mind, - I'm interested in a video on that, on your process and then discovery. I'm a spiritual person and to be honest, that's actually the reality of life. Nothing exists outside of our own perception. Check out Hindu scriptures on that. Extremely scientific. Also check out quantum mechanics and Hinduism. Actually Hinduism is not a religion. It's just an amalgamation of discoveries and their discoverers, sometimes made easier through stories for common people.
What to me that thing looks black and the other is yellow lol
maybe it's like that blue dress / white dress thing from a while ago, that was also to do with colour constancy i think
I’m laughing so hard, just a week ago I went down a color rabbit hole, lost my grip on reality and I’ve still not quiet recovered😂