Discover the art of capturing light and shadow with Heather Arenas in this free painting lesson. In her vibrant work “St. Armands Circle Corner,” Heather shares how she builds her compositions from bold shapes, thoughtfully balancing warm sunlight and cool shadows. This detailed guide will walk you through her process, from establishing the dark-light pattern to refining the scene’s final details. Whether you’re a seasoned painter or just starting out, Heather’s techniques will inspire you to see light and shadow in a whole new way. Let’s dive in!
Marking Light and Shade
Step 1
Heather Arenas starts a painting by placing the big shapes and setting the dark-light pattern. Here, she used cadmium yellow (a warm) to represent the sunlit portions of the building; in the next step she’ll add ultramarine blue (a cool) to mark the areas in shadow.
“My intention was to get the light and shadows down first,” she says. “I planned on allowing some hints of the yellow sunlight to show through in the finished painting.”
Step 2
The artist says the contrast of the bright umbrellas and the dark shadows under the building’s awnings attracted her to the subject.
“I’m drawn to strong lights and strong darks, but at this point, I was just blocking in shapes and color temperature with a wash of paint and Gamsol. The values came when I mixed paint in the following stages.”
Step 3
Next, Heather mixed paint and began adding local color; still, her emphasis remained on nailing down the light conditions before they changed. “I was still racing the clock to establish the dark-light pattern,” she says.
She turned her attention to the people sitting and standing outside the restaurant. “I needed to mark what was in light and what was in shadow — there were some limbs poking out from the shade.”
Step 4
The artist is dedicated to placing figures in her landscapes and interiors, but judiciously so. “I looked for shapes inside the sidewalk shape,” she says. “I didn’t want a packed sidewalk with too many people. My goal was to have sunlight hitting a few figures for interest.”
In fact, she was not painting specific people, but rather a conglomeration of several individuals. “By the time I got to the woman in white, everybody had changed,” she says.
The area to the right of the building remained loose for pragmatic reasons — that portion of the scene was unlikely to change in terms of light and shadow. She blocked in the plants and pots on the left, starting with the shadowed portions, because those shadows would change quickly.
Step 5
She then turned her attention to the right side of the canvas, which meant she had some significant editing to do. “There were a lot of things going on in that corridor, so I had to decide what I wanted the viewer to see,” says the artist. “That tree had a different texture compared to the other potted plants, and I liked that.”
Step 6
Even as she simplified, Heather sought to convey the truth of the subject matter. She wanted an added dimension to the right side of the painting, so she incorporated the streetlights to add a vertical and to give the area more heft.
“I didn’t like the imbalance of the piece; all the weight was on the left,” she says. “So even though I edited it, I wanted to present it as a busy scene. Some of the initial yellow was still showing through, plus my more muted mixtures of yellow and tan, because the sunlight was adding all that yellow warmth.”
Final Step
Connect with Heather Arenas at www.heatherarenas.com.
And browse more free articles here at OutdoorPainter.com
