I have often heard the rule that if you have warm light you have cool shadows, and if you have cool light you have warm shadows. But is this thr truth or a myth? For more details please visit my website www.lightingmentor.com
Do not try and bend the spoon; that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth… there is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends; it is only yourself
dang. The blue sky being secondary light source blew my mind a little bit. This was filmed really well and it greatly aided in my understanding of what you were talking about. Having you on screen as the presenter while the lights changed color and you changed environment was a really good choice even though it probably took forever to film. thanks for going the extra mile it really helps.
I had a teacher ask if the warm light makes the shadows cool then what would cool light do to shadows, I said make them warm, and the teacher laughed and said no they become even more cool. This sounded wrong but I was just a student. Years later I asked a better art teacher if they were right and he thought for a moment and said, "their answer doesn't make sense, if something is cooler than cool then than means your cool was really a warm; warmness and coolness are relative in relation to each other, your warmest color is your warm and your coolest are your cool" and I was like damn I wish you were in my class years ago
I spent 5 ears of my life in an art school, but none of classes there were nearly as interesting as yours! Thank you so much! I hope we get to see more of your color theory/painting/etc videos🥺
an interior designer told me something similar once. she said that the same paint or finish would look different in a room with light coming from different cardinal directions and depending on what objects were outside the window. a big tree or a lawn would cast in a lot of green colour, and that might look cooler in a room with north facing windows during the day versus in a room with west facing windows in the evening, and then adding in multiple windows or doorways, etc. great video thanks!
This has been extremely helpful. All too often I have come across dogmatic statements from artists and art teachers, and it's turned out that their claims apply only in some situations. But because those claims are expressed as rules, all too often people end up painting what they are TOLD is there, rather than what they OBSERVE to be there. This video has certainly taught me to look at both the shadow side of faces and to consider what kind of light is creating the colour seen on the face - the colour temperature of the light source, the direction of light, bounced light, etc. Thank you for the thorough explanation of colours in shadows.
Very helpful, I like the evidence presented to help see the reality. One other thing I noticed that has a big impact on the "shadow" colour, is the colour of the object itself. For instance, a reddish coloured cliff will of course look red on the sunny areas, but there will also be red in the shadow areas, although it may be a bit bluer red or perhaps warmer depending on the reflected light.
Great to see you you post this! I used to find it weird that people always refer to the artistic choice of warm light and cool shadow as some kind of rule, even though, as you mentioned in this video, that the coolness usually comes from the sky. Throughout my career, I realize that art directors use it less as a rule, but more to increase the appeal of an image, because color contrast usually makes an image more pleasing to the eye.
Jeremy, taking it outside is just another level! I've learned so much, having these real life examples makes things in my brain click. Thank you for doing all of that!!
Thank you, I learned a lot. I never had a problem with light, I just drew what I saw. When I was in school (1970's) we didn't talk about temperature. One day the instructor told me about reflected light. Never had a problem with it after that. Your doing the same as he did, strait out not hiding behind catch words. I like that, no mysteries just what is.
This kind of content being available for free is just amazing! You are a amazing teacher, Jeremy! Its insane how a good explanation can change the way wee see the world!
I always love ultramarine-blue shadows in the snow in winter. Especially next to the orange of a sunset. No illusions about where the color of the shadows comes from on such days
Thank you for addressing and explaining this so thoroughly. I have had this conversation/argument for years, how the rule of thumb ‘warm light equals cool shadows’ is simply not true. This video is SAVED for future reference. 👍🏻😎
Hi Jeremy, I wanted to take a minute to thank you for sharing this. This "myth" of "warm light/cool shadows" and vice versa is something very widespread, and "most of the time" true and "mind blowing", when examples are on a wide open area. What people don't know is that the reason for that being true in such examples, is the direct light of the sun and the reflected light of the sky, as you explain here in a perfectly clear way. Once again, thank you very much for clarifying this!
As an artist, I only use "warm light; cool shadows" as a shorthand for color relativity and a beginning point for teaching color and light theory. Learning more about how color IS light, and the scientific ways that light changes as it interacts with objects and environments (like the reddish edge that appears right before the terminator angle, called "Diffraction") helps to introduce more complexity and understanding. Love your breakdown of the subject!
Doesn't "local color" plays its part as well? Human skin can reflect virtually any color, but, let us say, synthetic vivid blue jacket can not (or can it?). So what if an object can barely reflect whatever secondary color there is?
Reflected light is more or less just a suuuuuper diffused reflection, human skin has sweat and oils and translucency which adds to the effect. So if this synthetic super blue jacket has a glossy finish it would probably show more of a tinted reflection, but best solution is to just get hold of this material and see for yourself IRL.
Yes, local color and material play a HUGE part in this too! Just more things to learn about light and color. It's all so amazing to study in my opinion
Color concept has been the bane of existence for me. Your channel has helped extremely in trying to understand that complexity. Thank you for all you do to help.
The very thing I've been saying for YEEAAARRRS!!! Oh my gosh, someone else finally says it!! I've been saying shadow "color" is really just ambient lighting, aka anything that is bouncing or scattering light so that it may reach the darker areas. I have thought about doing a deep dive video on it for YEARS, now! If I ever do, I definitely want to guide folks to this video. Your demonstrations and explanations are immaculate!
As an art student from an eighties art school, the tutors wouldn't even help you with color mixing, because in their words; if you can't do it intuitively, you are not talented! Thank you so much for this. 😍
Best description and examples that support what u are saying! Thank you bc I have looked for these answers and was tired of all these supposed rules which I found to be wrong but I am very new to art . Thank you
the moment around 1:28 where you step forward and how it lined up roughly with the end of the previous segment in the most awesome way, that was magic, movie magic!
you are a godsend sir. I've gone through so many diff tutorials and courses, but your one video helped clear up so much about "shadow" color and temperature in general!!
Excellent tutorial. As a nature and wildlife photographer, I often wrestle with adjusting White Balance when capturing images of birds and monkeys in dense Forrest cover because of this bounce light and subsurface scattering. Thank you.
This short film is really cool and useful, but one slight drawback is that if human faces are used as examples, the semi-transparency of the skin can reveal the color of blood vessels underneath, creating an illusion of warm and cool variations under a single light source. I think it would be better to use opaque materials for the examples, such as a plaster sphere.
Thank you for this well produced video Mentor Jeremy! You always deliver amazing content that blows my mind every time. You make color theory such a fun and not so overwhelming topic for us.
This is the best video on lighting I've found and sadly you're only the 2nd artist I've seen on YT who properly explains this. Your real life examples were extremely helpful! It was cool to see how much the light bounced from your hand when it was by your face (when you had the warm & blue light) and you immediately see a patch of warm light in the blue. Thank you for making such a great video with such wonderful examples!
Thank you for your knowledge. You encouraged many people and enlightened new way of learning process every time. I hope every of your videos are hit more than million views. Please keep going and stay healthy, stay hydrated, our mentor!
Jeremy, these observations are so accurate and inspiring, I learned a lot, and you are a great teacher, thank you. I will watch all your other videos for sure.
Thanks once again for this informative knowledge I'll never forget this and I'm glad I've been corrected because I was also told by many other artist that warm light = cool shadows.
I am just lucky to have run into your channel. You are one of the few best ones who enlighten me in light subject. And I highly appreciate your giving back what you have learned in those so many years of experience in the field , back into those who need your experience and valuable information into the world , I just simply say " Thank You ",, You touch onto lives somewhere on this earth planet,
Loved the demonstration. Was fun to watch you point at your face and have your hand reflect light back onto the shadow side of your face! Even before you brought in the reflectors.
Absolutely brilliantly done! Thank you🙏🏽❤️ Really clear, accurate information that just brought so much to my understanding. Really appreciate your approaches. Keep up the great work, brother✊🏽💥🎉
What a wonderful video, thank you so much! Incredibly helpful, thoughtful, informative. Especially benefitted from your visual examples of bounced, diffuse, etc. light sources.
It's so very kind of you to share your knowledge on this subject! I truly appreciate it very much! Thank you!!! Greetings from someone who always wants to learn🔦..... (I'm from The Netherlands) 🎨
Wow - i've been painting for 12 years and never "saw" this before. It's so obvious that secondary light makes the difference that I feel really stupid for not having seen it before. Neither have great art teachers seen it! That's astounding!
