keying diffused light situations

recently i started doing paintings in diffused lighting and ive noticed a bad habit i have.  I dont include a full value range, i feel like i should use more contrast so my darks will have more punch....so note to self dont used midtone as you lightest value use near white.

athmospheric persprective

a crucial part of painting that contain outside elements is atmospheric perspective.  Shadow and light tones are affected differently as they recede but in a predicable manner. In both cases the hue shift is always to wards the color of the sky, in most cases this will be blue, but not always.  In the shadows you will see big jumps in the hue of a color as it moves away from the viewer with relatively small changes in saturation.  also shadow s will get lighter untill they approach the value of the sky itself.

Lights on the other hand will see a big change in saturation will relatively small changes in hue ( moving towards the color of the sky again)  the value will move towards the value of the sky as well but in the case of lights it can get darker or lighter depending on the local color of the object.  obviously the changes in value will be relatively small compared to the value changes in the shadows because it has less distance to travel to match the value of the sky.  the changes in color of the lights is a direct mix of the main light source and secondary light source imposed on the object. so say the conditions are as follows.... the sky is yellow green and the main light source is orange-yellow.  since both have a considerable amount of yellow in them objects with a local color of orange , yellow or gray will have considerable saturation as they recede compared to normal sunlight conditions (orange yellow main light and blue sky)

making composition managable

composition is one of my weakest areas.  I say this even though I know all the conventional rules that are in place to guide artists.  The problem for me is putting it all together.  So ive been trying to come up with a process for thumbnailling.  here is where I am right now.


1. Proportion of light to dark, working in just black and white the canvas must be divided into areas of light and dark.  Either the light or dark must dominate in surface area.  It is not necessary to group or link all your dark areas but it is well to note that most images will benefit from this.

2. Within the light and dark areas there must be interesting overall shapes.  after the general proportion of light and dark is laid in it is best to make the shapes of these areas more planed while keeping the general proportion the same.


3. Edge complexity should diminish as you move away from the center of interest as well as complexity of shapes who's contours should be made of fewer lines as you move away from the focus of the piece.

4. Now you can start refining the objects in the light and dark shapes.  It is better to give dominance of scale to one object or group of objects over everything else, generally this will be on or near the center of interest.