How to Paint a Spotlight Effect

James Gurney offers tips for focusing the light where you want it

- James Gurney

In a cloudless midday sky, the sun shines evenly on everything. But if you paint that kind of light, the result risks being dull and monotonous, like the sound of someone speaking in a monotone. There's no law that says we have to use flat, boring light, even if we face those conditions in real life. If you want to create a dramatic mood in your picture, you can shine the light precisely where you want it and sink the rest of the scene into a mysterious shadow.

STAGE-BY-STAGE PROCEDURE BARNYARD LIGHT

I imagine this barnyard scene to be lit with a shaft of golden light arriving out of nowhere. This gives the scene a strange theatrical feeling, because such a warm light arriving in isolation at that angle would be very unlikely in the real world. The photo of the scene I was looking at shows that the forms are rather evenly lit.

Stage 1 I start with a random underpainting in casein that I've done in advance without knowing how I'll use it. The underpainting is a random abstract shape, a golden blob surrounded by a mid-value blue. The underpainting is dry when my session begins, so it won't pick up with subsequent layers of gouache.

Stage 2 After drawing the main lines in watercolor pencils, I add thin layers of gouache with a flat brush. I describe the big areas of the scene, keeping the warm illuminated area separate from the cooler and darker surrounding areas.