High Contrast Shape Welding

Following on the previous post, and Eric’s point about how this all this applies to drawing, I thought I’d share a couple of studies from life where I was trying to pursue this idea of shape welding using high contrast form lighting.


I did this little pencil sketch in a room lit by a single lamp. The goal was to squint down and just state the biggest masses of light and shadow, shapewelding all the lights together, and the same with the darks.


On this one I experimented with painting from a model with just white and black oil (on chipboard sealed with shellac), ignoring all the middle tones and transitions. The shadows are all shapewelded together. I could have even left off that hint of an outline on the shoulder. It’s amazing how much the brain automatically seeks out unseen contours.

Tomorrow, another of Pyle's compositional devices: "Clustering."