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HOW LIGHT WORKS ITS MAGIC

1. BACKLIGHT The simplest, most texture and color friendly, quickest, easiest to apply and most romantic of light is backlight. It also quickly disguises any flaws in the original painting. Visions of swings, bonnets, long grass and afternoon light are the stuff of backlight paintings. The temptation to overuse backlight, is, to some artists, overwhelming. So always use less than you think suitable. 1. Usuall applying backlight is the last step on finishing the painting. Apply with thick pure paint (impasto). A dark grey hat can quickly become brilliantly blue, a red shirt will glow with color and ripples of water can sparkle. 2. As it is essentially an edge so also be careful to use it to also define the texture of the object.

In this example I have restricted myself to the use of backlight in one area, Fig 2 and 3. As you can see since my original painting was in shades of grey the opportunities for applying backlight are manifold. Backlighting, as you can observe in Fig 3and 4, is a simple tracing procedure using a higher value, greater saturation color. I did this here with the computer tools which is like using a cannon to shoot a mouse. [ Lesson Index ] [ Previous Lesson ] [ Next Lesson ]