Step-by-step drawing demo on how to paint moody portraits with shadows.
Most painters long to show feeling in their paintings. Some artists come by it naturally. Some need a little help. This is why I came up with this tutorial on shadows. In it I will talk less and show more with links to my actual work as it progresses. By seeing exactly what goes into a dramatic shadow painting I hope you will get a better feel for it. You can find the illustrations here: Shadow Demo
So let's get started.
Step One: The Drawing
Here you can see I did a very light sketch of my subject with a black watercolor pencil and then traced over the lines with a light wash of lamp black watercolor.
Step Two: Adding Shadows
Next, I added a wash of shadow with cobalt blue. I use the biggest flat brush possible for this step. Notice how the contours in the face have sharp shadows. This is because of the dramatic lighting we are using; the light source is above and towards the front.
Step Three: Adding Definition
Here I started adding definition with French ultramarine.
Step Four: Adding Color
Color was added by putting thin glazes over the existing paint. As you can see the blue shadows shows through.
Step Five: Finishing Up
On this step I added detail with watercolor pencils and graphite.
