Product Description

Mastery of light and shade - rendered with accuracy and expressive power - is the key to three-dimensional form in drawing and painting. Here is the first book on this essential subject, the product of years of study by one of the world's great teachers of drawing and an artist of international renown, Burne Hogarth.

Hogarth begins with the simplist kind of light and shade, showing how a dark silhouette on white paper can communicate form and space. He then shows how the silhouette is transformed into three dimensions with the addition of minimal light - the highlight.

Following these instructory chapters, Hogarth devotes a separate chapter to each of the given basic categories of light and shade: single-source light; double-source light; flat, diffused light; moonlight; and sculptural light. In these chapters Hogarth illustrates the effects of these different kinds of light on a variety of subjects and examines both natural and artificial light sources.

Moving on to more complex lighting effects, Hogarth explains spatial light - how light and shade can create a sense of "near and far"; environmental light - the effects of weather, time of day, and the changing of seasons; textural light - how light reveals the surface qualities of forms that range from rough stone to silk and satin draperies; transparent light - the effects passing through transparent materials like glass and water, and translucent substances like moving water or sailcloth; fragmentation light - the disrupted light we see in such subjects as fire, rain, and flying snow; radiant light - the intense light we see when we look into the light source itself, which may range from the sun to a candle flame; and finally the various kinds of expressive light invented by the artist - such as the symbolic and mystic light of religious art, or the paterns of light and shade that convey a mood or a psychological state.

Burne Hogarth illustrates every effect of light and shade with brilliant drawings in pencil, charcoal, carbon, pen and ink, and brush and ink, encouraging the reader to experiment with diverse drawing media.

Dynamic Light and Shade is an essential volume for everyone who draws and paints.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36876 in Books
• Published on: 1991-09-01
• Released on: 1991-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780823015818
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Burne Hogarth’s (1911–1996) remarkable career spanned over 60 years. He wore many hats in the worlds of fine art, art education, and art publishing. He is most famous for his internationally syndicated Sunday newspaper color page feature “Tarzan” (1937–1950) and for his illustrated adaptations of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels Tarzan of the Apes and Jungle Tales of Tarzan. A co-founder of the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Hogarth remains one of the most influential figures in art education today.

Customer Reviews

these other reviewers must be crazy...
This book is precise, and it's comprehensive. It may not take you by the hand and say "step 1, draw a circle..." but I don't think this is really a HOW-TO type of book. It's more of a WHY book. It explains to artists the fundamental reasons to use a wide range of specific lighting theories, and it describes these theories very well (Hogarth's explanations work for me, and probably for other people in the worlds of comics, animation, etc.).

This book doesn't aim to be your one-and-only reference on the subject of lighting (an extremely technical subject to be sure). It's primary focus is not on color, but on form, and it may not talk about lighting the way that 3D artists do. But I've learned a ton from this book, and I refer to it often.

Highly detailed teaching- analytical light & shade...
...An intermediate-to-advanced, in-depth, analytical treatment- I really wanted to like this... yet...

Flipping quickly through this work, it's pretty obvious this isn't one of Hogarth's best. I'm specifically referring to drawing quality- the teaching & concepts here are very detailed, analytical, and sometimes even helpful. Filled with Hogarth's own artwork, as well as work by other artists, it sure seems like someone dropped the ball on image quality & content. The images here *teach principles* well enough; it's just that I can pretty much count on one hand the number of images that I actually *like* to look at. And that's a pretty big problem(!). The entire book is in black & white mixed-media, which is fine by me as long as the artwork is *inspirational*...

Still, the actual teaching here on light & shade is really pretty detailed. Check out this listing of 'light-types' explained & depicted: silhouette; minimal; single-source; double-source; flat-diffused; moonlight; sculptural; spatial; environmental; textural; transparent; fragmentation; radiant; and expressive (whew!). Who knew there were this many kinds of light? But again- the pictures don't do the words any justice when the pictures fail to excite & inspire. This confirms to me something I had already assumed: besides a few good art instruction books to help with getting started, the best way to learn to draw anything is by copying photos & artwork by our own favorite artists. This seems *especially* true in the case of light & shade.

Will some people love this book? Sure! It's nice to see the several Tarzan pictures here- at least for curiosity's sake. But I think most people, including Hogarth fans like myself, will pretty readily admit this book is about average at best- and not really helpful at all for beginners (not recommended!). It's certainly the weakest link in his 6-book Dynamic Drawing series. If it *continues* to stay in print, it'll likely be based mainly on the strength of Hogarth's famous name.

P.S. A better book for beginners? Walt Reed's The Figure! It contains somewhat brief but *excellent* tips on basic light & shade.

Excellent book of examples
If you're looking for explicit or step-by-step instruction on applying lighting and shadow to your drawing, this probably isn't the book for you. If, on the other hand, you're looking for real-world illustration examples of just about every type of lighting situation (even through fog and rain), be sure to pick this one up!

Burne Hogarth, with his immaculate drawing style, presents examples of everything from multi-point lighting to backlighting. I particularly enjoyed his examples of lighting the foreground, middle ground, and background differently. As always, the author's books are a joy just to look through.