Trapping the Light on a Scooter : Preview

Trapping the light is a key skill in watercolour. We more often than not paint darks around lights.

Whilst it is a relatively simple task to paint a dark around an object to trap the light, there are various considerations. We take a good look at these in this fun and lively painting of a scooter.

Summary Points:
Background & negative shapes,
Simple shapes of light and shadow,
Setting a painting up, including shadow colours,
Opaque paint,

Not only are we using the negative shape of the darker background to trap the light, but we are also shaping the positive shape of the scooter, meaning a good level of accuracy is needed.

There is also a lot of “setting-up” required to be ready for the darker background. In this case, we build up the scooter slowly but surely using simple shapes of light and shadow. The shadow colour of this subject is particularly interesting, and at times tricky so we will investigate this too.

Finally, how do we actually approach a background, it can feel daunting. In this case, I choose to keep it a little lighter in tone than my usual big bold dark backgrounds - something a bit different!

Finally, we will use opaque colours in a variety of ways. A nice little bonus element.

There’s a lot wrapped up in this little scooter and it’s a huge amount of fun!