Lights and Darks in 3's

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mini-Tutorial: Lights and Darks in 3's

by Michael Newberry

NOTE FROM MSK: The actual tutorial has been removed at the request of Michael Newberry. The link to the tutorial on his site remains in the title above. I highly recommend you go there and go through it. Here is a small quote from it:

Dreams of Round Things, 2006, charcoal on Rives BFK, 19x26"

One big problem that artists face when developing light and shadow in a work is that they tend to have the exact same darks and lights scattered around the surface. The result is that it kills the life out of the drawing!

A great way to solve that problem is to celebrate a hierarchy of lights and darks. The simplest way to do that is to focus on three different tones of lights and darks.