How to Create Depth in Oil Painting with Cast Shadows by Helen Van Wyk

The Dual Purpose of Cast Shadows (Dimension & Artistry)
Painting What We Saw, Not Just What We See
Avoiding "Kisses" to Maintain Dimension
The Three H's: Head, Hand, and Heart

In this lesson, Helen Van Wyk explains the crucial role of cast shadows in oil painting. She shows how they serve a dual purpose: they are practical for creating dimension on a flat canvas, and artistic for adding intriguing patterns of light and dark. She demonstrates how to contrive and manipulate shadows, use the complementary color violet for shadows on yellow objects, and why avoiding a 'kiss' between converging elements is essential for a dimensional effect.

Overview

Helen uses a still life of a jug, tomatoes, and green peppers to illustrate the power of shadows:

Dual Purpose: Cast shadows are practical (they add dimension) and artistic (they add intriguing patterns of light and dark). Helen contrives a dramatic shadow to cross the subject for interest.
Artist vs. Painter: A painter copies what they see, but an artist paints what they artistically want and what they "saw," applying tender loving care.
Shadow Blending: She demonstrates her fast blending method, which she calls "poop," to "roll that big jug right around." Cast shadows, however, require a slightly sharper shape and less blending.
Complementary Color: Use violet, the complementary color to yellow, to create shadows on yellow objects (like the jug's handle).
Avoiding "Kisses": To maintain dimension, you must avoid a "kiss," which is when the edges of two elements (like a pepper's edge and a cast shadow's edge) converge on the canvas.
The Three H's: The quality of painting depends on the Head (craft), the Hand (production), and the Heart (art).

Transcript

[Music] Hi, I'm Helen Van Wyk, and welcome to my studio. Today, I'm going to talk about cast shadows. Cast shadows do two things: they are practical in that they add dimension, but they also add so much artistry to a picture. Let me show you my subject today. I have arranged it in a way that there's a cast shadow coming from this corner, crossing the subject matter, which may add an artistic touch to this very plain subject. So let me talk more about cast shadows as I show you how I go about this picture. First, I'm going to place the tomatoes. I want that tomato in there, and I want this tomato in the picture too. I'll leave a little more space over here to accentuate the cast shadows since they're all going to the left. I'll keep that tomato on this side. I think I'll use a brush with a bit more stiffness to begin with. Oops, how high am I going to put this? The subject matter is going to take up this space. That's going to be a tomato, and this is going to be a green pepper, and this is going to be the jug. Here's the green pepper, and here's a red tomato, and here's another red tomato. I'm just going to paint it from start to finish and tell you all about my love affair with paint as I go. I think I'll start right out and make as stunning a cast shadow as I can from the jug. In this kind of lighting, I only see a whisper of one, but I'm going to make more because the cast shadow helps breathe dimension onto the canvas. Now, the cast shadow I contrived over here adds some interest to the picture, making this background dark on this side. What color background do I want? I don't want green because I want to focus on the green peppers, so why use their beautiful green color on the background? I don't want to use red either, or this color paint. Deciding on your background color almost comes from deciding what the background shouldn't be. Let me try for maybe a duller version of this. Always try it out. That's better. Maybe try it out and then put it in. Flip-flop your brush. Don’t do this (demonstrates incorrect motion) because that rubs one side of it down. This way (demonstrates correct motion) preserves it, and also flip-flopping it back and forth tends to make a more interesting brush application. I'm in love with my brushes too. I really am a brush nut. I have more brushes. In fact, whenever I start a new portrait commission, I always take a new brush. It's like buying a new dress for a new affair. Let me put in this jug. It's light where the light strikes, so I take white, and it's yellowish, so I put yellow into white and try it out. All right, not yellow enough to begin with, and I'm going to paint in where I see the light striking. The cast shadow that I happen to see in my arrangement over there isn't the shape that I know I could get from a wall. We don’t paint what we see; we paint what we saw. We apply or add some tender loving care. Just to paint what you see is what a painter does. To paint what you artistically want is what an artist does. Here again is a demonstration of the way I blend colors. Maybe you tuned in when I did that. I call it poop. I put it in one way and blend it in the opposite. There’s the Poopsy DW and then fuse it. Just rolls that big jug right around. Now, a cast shadow doesn't need that much blending. It's a much sharper shape, a sharper type of shadow. So I put it in with a little bit more force, but it does need a little bit of blending. Maybe that could be a smaller version of Poopsy. This doesn’t mean much right now. Give your picture a chance to mature. You're having a little relationship with the picture. You’ve got to get it off the ground. Yes, I've put that handle in not as light as this because it's in the cast shadow. I used violet, the complementary color to yellow, to make the shadow. But now I'm adding reflected light into that cast shadow to make the substance show again or make the crock have some feeling of substance. And the highlight—I didn't arrange the highlight or the cast shadow to rob me of the highlight because I love highlights just as much as I love cast shadows. Let me stop just a minute so I can get into these colorful things down here. I'm cleaning off this space. A painting is put together with the three H's: the head, the hand, and the heart. The head takes care of the craft, the hand takes care of the production, and the heart is the art of it. I fixed the cast shadow from the pot on the background and included a feeling of the handle. Let’s see how the further development of this picture shows how the cast shadow contributes to the end result. I better get going toward the end result. I'm going to put in the green pepper first because it's further back. In fact, I'm going to push it behind the crock. Nine days old and we can paint anything. Really, anything can be painted if you mass it in a general tone in the silhouette that it is. And onto that general silhouette of a mass tone, which is its general color, add a light and dark because it's the light and dark that make this mass tone or mass shape take on some dimension. If you treat it with some tender loving care and love the way the paint works, you just may get a pepper or an impression of a pepper. This plane of the pepper goes back, so does this one. I'm in love with the rhythm of application, the brushwork. So the components that make up the person you love are the components that make up painting. You love them too. Now, oh, I should have put—see, it's my anniversary and I'm all mixed up—I should have put the red tomato in first because it's behind there. Now I'm going to have to ruin that edge to do it. Well, so I'll ruin it. Maybe the second time around the edge it'll even get better. Or maybe I can have my dear friend, the cast shadow, disguise a lot of things. The pot is in front of the green pepper and casting a shadow over it. This pepper is in front of the tomato and casting a shadow on it, making more intriguing patterns of light and dark as well as adding dimension. And now this cast shadow from this green pepper is coming back to where it sits on the table. This cast shadow that's on the green pepper is coming back to what's causing it, so as it adds tonal intrigue to the picture, it adds dimension. Strong contrasts are beautiful. Painting didn't remedy this shape over here. Try to fix that. I masked in the tomato. Now I'm going to add lighter tones. Ooh, some scrumptious color today. Light where it's facing the light and darker where it's going away. A highlight on each one of its lumps. But that tomato can't do without its cast shadow. Now this green pepper is mysteriously lurking in this shadow, so I'm going to mass it in darkened green, green with red in it. I would never let the edge of that touch this beautiful edge of the cast shadow because why ruin the intrigue of that cast shadow with the edge of the pepper? That's called a kiss. Kisses are fine, but you can't kiss on canvas. That's where something that's in front of something else converges. They don't describe the dimension. I loved Rosco, the man I studied with. He was a wonderful man. He always said, "Helen, you have the audacity to put the three-dimensional world on the two-dimensional surface," and avoiding kisses will help you get that dimensional effect. There, that color is going. The light is just touching, just skimming on that green pepper right there. The rest of it’s in shadow, and I think it adds a nice element to this picture because it makes this such a different look than this. You know it’s a green pepper, but it’s not repetitious. It’s not exactly the same. And this apple—love apple, this tomato over here is completely in shadow, and so it’s a different color than that. It’s diminished with gray. When in doubt, use gray. Gray the color when you see it in shadow. Oh, I’m going to have this dramatic cast shadow. See, it’s on here, and it’s going to come from this corner. This apple is not all as dark as that; it’s getting some reflected light. I’m getting dangerously close to this edge. Maybe I can get away with it because of the cast shadow leading your eye in here. Or maybe to balance that off, I may extend this cast shadow further. Always try to strike a balance. Nature is in balance, and so we want our pictures to be balanced. If this is in front of this, it can’t be on the same plane. I know it’s going to make a mess, but I have to correct it. And if you have to patch something and you can’t get the same color, spread the patch. Oh yes, that right away puts that green pepper behind it. Now I want to put this tomato in, but it is not going to be in shadow. It’s going to be in light. So first, let me see where I want to put it. There. Again, mass it in a general tone. Notice how I always start in the safe part in the middle and sneak out toward the edges. No one cares how much you suffer, so do it as easily as possible. And this one is going to have a cast shadow all of its own. I hope this demonstration is showing you why I'm in love with cast shadows. Let me see what my cast shadows look like from a distance before I come back and finish this for you. Just try to visualize what this picture would look like without this dramatic cast shadow. I think I like it. I like everything today; it’s a special day. Let me just continue a little bit and use some brighter red. This is cadmium red light, quite orangey. This darker, more true red is Grumbacher red. It can withstand a lot of white and still stay bright, though these tomatoes seem to be kind of orangey. So have enough paint on your palette to breathe a lot of color into your picture. Even though I've been painting cast shadows since I was very young, when I started to paint, it’s not repetitious because the cast shadows are always going on a new composition, a new idea. I never repeat past success. You can't repeat past success because you have a memory of having done it before, and sometimes if you think it’s so good, you can’t measure up to that. Painting pictures is like living; it’s a new experience every time. Go on to a new composition. Always be in love with paint and realize that the characteristic of paint is dictated very much by something else you have to love and respect, and that is nature. Light comes from above, and so flat planes, the down planes, get very light. The down planes or flat planes are usually always lighter than the up and down planes because light comes from above. So paintings also come to a conclusion. You can't rekindle them; you can't go backward. They finish themselves. I hope you enjoyed my cast shadow lesson on my wedding anniversary. Next time we meet, I’m going to show you how I paint a landscape, or maybe I’ll teach you how to make soup. Hello, I'm Helen Van Wyk, and welcome to my studio.

Key Takeaways

Cast shadows are both practical (dimension) and artistic (tonal intrigue).
The goal of the artist is to paint what you artistically want and what you "saw," not just a simple copy of what you see.
To maintain a dimensional effect, avoid "kisses" on the canvas where the edges of two elements converge.
For shadows on yellow objects (like a yellow crock), use violet—its complementary color.
The quality of painting relies on the "three H's": Head (craft), Hand (production), and Heart (art).
Paintings finish themselves and can't be rekindled; avoid going backward or trying to repeat past success.

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