Frontal Lighting

Next time you’re at a figure sketch group, set up your easel right next to the spotlight. From that position, the light will be streaming right over your shoulder, shining almost directly at the model. Below is a 20-minute oil study with the light just off my left shoulder.


Usually no one in the sketch group wants that spot anyway because the form has practially no shadow side. Most people prefer to draw or paint from locations where the light strikes the form sideways, reasoning that they can get the form to turn better with more of a shadow side.


But they are missing something wonderful! Frontal lighting does tend to flatten form, but it gives power to the two-dimensional design instead. It gives your whole picture a striking postery impact. It's a good lighting to choose if you want to emphasize color or pattern—to feature a fashion or costume, for instance (below from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara).


And it’s one of the few times when outlines actually appear in real life. The outline is really the thin fringe of shadow that appears at the very edge of the form (kind of the opposite of edge lighting). The line bears close study. It varies in weight in proportion to the width of the plane that is turning away.


So, in the example above, the wide forehead plane yields a broad outline, while smaller planes of the lips and chin result in a thinner shadow/outline.

Tomorrow: Windblown Cape