Discover the Pattern of Light and Shadow chapter 5
The Range of Tones.
In order to obtain the illusion of reality in your drawing, you must be able to portray the light that
you observe on objects or scenes. Previously, you have considered light and shadow as shapes fitting
together to form a jigsaw puzzle. You must now consider the quality of that light in those shapes.Ask yourself the following questions: Is the light strong? Is it,
therefore, making very defined shadows? Or is it weak, with
less defined shadows and a lot more grays? The tonal range
on the right demonstrates a series of tones from white to
black. Nine tones are shown here, but many, many more are
available to you. In order to draw any light situation that you
will encounter as an artist, such as a sunny or cloudy day,
you should have a wide range of tones available to you. Take
a 4B pencil and, using squares as shown here, see how
many squares of tone you can obtain with your pencil. Start
with the white of your paper as your whitest white.