Painting Color and Light

Learn to master color and light in your illustrations. Gain insight from some of the best artists in the industry – Will Terry, Jake Parker and special guest Ty Carter. They will teach you the fundamentals of light and color theory and then show you how to put those skills into practice in your artwork. Throughout 8 classes you will learn how to apply the techniques of the masters in the digital realm.

Being able to draw is only the first step, adding color and light can make your illustrations luminous and dynamic. The instructors will show you how to incorporate many different lighting situations into the foregrounds and backgrounds of your illustrations. Bring your flat illustrations to life through the techniques and skills that professionals use!

In this class you will learn:

Demo of various lighting situations, assignment issued, examples of what and what NOT to do.

Light & Shadow – Choosing best lighting directions, types of light for mood and appropriate situations (spotlight, vs ambient), choosing types of light sources to enhance your illustrations with communication and interest, types of shadows and shadow behavior.

Choosing colors, accent colors, competing colors, muddy colors, limited pallets, glazing/multiply/unity, color schemes, under painting value & color focal points, texture and light, plane changes, edges.

Lighting for time of day, objects lit with half light/half shadow, 3 types of light sources (off camera, on camera, hidden), lighting for mood, how atmospheric perspective effects edges, value, & color.

Review of some student artwork and useful advice on how it can be improved.

Working with colored light – Painting demos of different colored light/time of day on same subject matter.

Watch critiques of finished assignments from the students who took the LIVE class.

You will receive:

14 hours HD video instruction

practice images

Who should take this course

Ideal for children’s book illustrators, animators, comic artists, graphic novel artists, cover artists, etc. Though the class is presented digitally, the same principles carry over into traditional art forms.

Students should be familiar with the fundamentals of color and value.

We suggest taking the following classes first:

Working with Color

Light and Shadow