Learn a practical step-by-step approach to adding light and shadow to your illustrations

Learning how to apply light and shadow to a drawing is one of the most important foundational skills. Every artist, from beginner to professional, has to understand value in order to be successful. This course will teach you how to take your drawing to the next level and remove any confusion about the process. 

Work alongside professional children’s book illustrator Lee White as he demonstrates his approach for adding light and shadow to 6 unique scenarios. 


Note: For this course Lee uses Adobe Photoshop in his demonstrations and shares some tricks to use when working digitally. The concepts taught in this course do not rely on any specific medium. If you are not going to work digitally for this course it is recommended that you use an opaque medium (acrylic, oil, marker and colored pencil, etc).


In this class you will learn:

  • What local tone is

  • How dark to go with shadows and where to place them

  • The difference between form and cast shadows

  • Edge control, including how to use hard, firm, soft and lost edges

  • Problem areas when it comes to adding light and shadow and how to correct them

  • How to avoid adding too much light

  • How to use light and shadow with different styles

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About the Instructor

Illustrator Extraodinare

Lee White

Lee White is a children's book illustrator based in Franklin, Tennessee. His latest book, This Pretty Planet, comes out in November 2020. He also teaches all his painting secrets here at SVSLearn.

Course curriculum

  • 1

    Introduction

    • Introduction

    • Tools
  • 2

    Local Tone

    • Introduction to Local Tone
  • 3

    Assignment 1

    • Light and Shadow Assignment 1
  • 4

    Assignment 2

    • Light and Shadow Assignment 2

    • Light and Shadow Assignment 2
  • 5

    Local Tone cont.

    • Local Tone- Ball

    • Local Ball- Beach Ball

    • Local Tone- Multiple Objects

    • Local Tone- Robot

    • Local Tone- Room

    • Local Tone- Exterior
  • 6

    Value and Edge Control

    • Value and Edge Control
  • 7

    Assignment 3

    • Light and Shadow Assignment 3

    • Light and Shadow Assignment 3
  • 8

    Shadow

    • Shadow- Ball

    • Shadow- Beach Ball

    • Shadow- Multiple Objects

    • Shadow- Robot

    • Shadow- Room

    • Shadow- Exterior
  • 9

    Adding Light

    • Light- Ball

    • Light- Beach Ball

    • Light- Multiple Objects

    • Light- Robot

    • Light- Room

    • Light- Exterior
  • 10

    Finding your Style

    • Stylized and Realistic Examples
  • 11

    Assignment 4

    • Light and Shadow Assignment 4

    • Light and Shadow Assignment 4
  • 12

    Conclusion

    • Conclusion
  • 13

    Supplemental Material 1

    • Pencil Demonstration

    • Marker Demonstration

  • 23

    Videos

  • 5.85

    Hours

  • 4

    Assignments

Reviews

Best course i've taken so far

Sebastian Andrade

This is a very complete class with step by step excercises that help you understand and apply light and shadow

This is a very complete class with step by step excercises that help you understand and apply light and shadow

Read Less

Another J-I-T gold nugget

Qi An

This class kills procrastination on learning Light and Shadow dead! Like the other fundamentals, this topic can be dry and boring and hard to understand - so...

Read More

This class kills procrastination on learning Light and Shadow dead! Like the other fundamentals, this topic can be dry and boring and hard to understand - so I had put it in the "Do it never" basket for a long time. Until now. Lee delivers another stellar class that's clear and easy to understand, loads of step by step demonstrations as well as achievable assignments for each lesson. Light and Shadow is super important for my illustration objectives and if you are looking to level up your art in the new year, this class is unmissable.

Read Less

Perfect

Perky Smith-Hagadone

Excellent pace. I love it...only on tools and I have learned a ton.

Excellent pace. I love it...only on tools and I have learned a ton.

Read Less

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Our videos are custom made to show you how to get the skills necessary to break into the dynamic field of illustration.

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