Table, Chair, Window, Egg

This is a rendering of a portion of an old church on Melville Street, in Pittsfield, where I live. The church is about a block and a half from my studio. Incidentally, the street itself is named after Herman Melville who lived and worked about five miles from Pittsfield. My drawing of this church conforms to some very powerful rules of painting and drawing which I would like to point out. You are going to need a table and a chair, an egg and a window in order to understand these rules. I’m sorry but it has to be a brown egg, white just won’t do. I do hope you have a table and a chair. My neighbors don’t but that is neither here nor there.

Once you have all the necessary things, set the egg on the table near a window, at a time of day when there is strong sunlight. Electric light is useless, but I can’t get into that right now. Sit down in the chair and take a good hard look at the egg. Here is what you are going to see. A brown egg. But that is not all, the portion toward the window and the light is going to be very light, practically white. The portion of the egg farthest from the window is going to be in shadow and therefore a kind of dark brown. That portion of the egg in the middle is exactly egg color, in painting and drawing this is called the “Middle Tone” When we say that a thing is a certain color we are referring to this middle tone. Take a red silk scarf for example, in its middle tones it is red, in the shadow it is maroon to black, and in the light it is a pink to white. And so on with flesh colors, or any other object’s colors..

Now here is the rule I am driving at. In a painting or a drawing the majority of the image should be middle tone. Some portions, preferably receding planes, will be in the light, and some in shadow. But here is the point, the majority of the image is in the middle tone.

Now we come to my drawing which is very much like the egg on a table. Coincidentally I have stained the paper brown egg color but that is a coincidence. The majority of my forms are in the middle tone and lit by a half light, that is the incident light from all over. The direct light falls on only those forms which are turned to the right, Forms turned to the left go into shadow, just like on the egg.

If you go to a museum looking for examples to this idea you will certainly find it. The trick is rather to find an exception. It is one of those rules like The Law Of Centrifugal Force. It’s not something you decide to obey, it just takes over and operates of its own accord where ever there is movement. And so the law of the middle tone operates where ever there is painting and drawing.

Table, Chair, Egg, and a Dollar Bill

By now you are familiar with my didactic method of explaining drawings . This drawing picks up where the theory of the another drawing leaves of, and like the other drawing it involves looking at an egg. So, if we put that brown egg back on the table, as before, lit by a single light source then we can observe that it is mostly “middle tone” but there is a section toward the light which is almost white, and a section of the egg away from the light, in shadow, which is a dark brown. Now I want you to consider the section of the egg that is darkest. It will be darkest in a smooth band at a certain point on the egg. To the left, and to the right of this dark band it gets lighter. Now,( this gets complicated but it is worth the effort.) If you sit down and look at the egg from any accidental angle, what are the odds that the darkest edge of shadow will fall exactly at the outer edge of the egg? Almost nil! The darker shadows on curving forms almost never coincide with the outer edge of the form. It is just against the odds. This happens so often that it creates the rule that we could call “Light in the shadow side.”

Now, for an example, look at my drawing, do you see that the round form of the building is lit from the left and goes into shadow as it turns to the right. But after the turret shape gets darkest it gets lighter again before its curve ends. So also with the chimney shape over to the left. It is lit from the left, gets darker part way around, and then gets lighter before the outside edge is reached.

Now look at the face of Washington on a dollar bill. See how there is a shadow on his chin where the form turns under. But further under, in the shadow area you can see “Light In The Shadow Side”. Where else can we find this phenomena. The cheek of the Mona Lisa, Donald Ducks neck. The fingers of a Raphael Madonna. As a matter of fact it is like “ the law of the middle tone”, this visual phenomena is everywhere and is so universal that it escapes detection. Are there any variables? Yes, the glossier the curved object the more noticeable the effect, and if a form is very rough it is hard to see the light in the shadow side.

And now a few words about this drawing. This is an absolutely great drawing, that is all I have to say about it.