Orange Streak in Outdoor Shadows???

[mistersomes]

Hey guys,

I'm not really sure if this has been discussed before but can anyone kindly explain the existence of these orange streaks at the edge of these shadows?

I understand that the shadows from these outdoor paintings are cooler because of the secondary light source from the sky, but I don't have any idea where these orange streaks come from.







I tried searching blogs and the forums for this topic but I can't find anything related.My research has been pretty hopeless, I hope someone might give an explanation. It's really been bugging me for months.

[dpaint]

Well, there can be a couple of reasons; one is subsurface scattering where light is passing through a translucent object, the other is atmospheric, where again the light is passing through dust and particles in the atmosphere causing a similar effect. The atmospheric effect happens on smoky days or dusty days usually when the sun is low in the sky and the light is passing through more of the atmosphere. Painters use the effect to brighten the feeling of light in their paintings. Another effect is the greatest amount of hue and saturation of a form is in the halftone near where the light transitions to shadow and some painters like to over emphasize that effect to turn the form.

Of course its overuse is also common because someone is told it could happen and then includes it in every painting they ever make whether its appropriate or not. Also a lot of painters tone their under paintings with a warm middle tone to get rid of the white of the canvas letting it peek through to unify the painting. And then there are Hensche students that just paint formulaic candy colored crap most of the time because he taught them to and start by toning their canvas cad red.

My advice is paint things the way you observe them when outdoor painting, until you have a reason to exaggerate them for a specific idea you have for the image.

[Elwell]

Self-conscious stylistic fillip.

[briggsy@ashtons]

Could also be from working from photographs where the colour of the sunlight is desaturated in the fully-lit areas due to overexposure.

[mistersomes]

Well, there can be a couple of reasons; one is subsurface scattering where light is passing through a translucent object, the other is atmospheric, where again the light is passing through dust and particles in the atmosphere causing a similar effect. The atmospheric effect happens on smoky days or dusty days usually when the sun is low in the sky and the light is passing through more of the atmosphere. Painters use the effect to brighten the feeling of light in their paintings. Another effect is the greatest amount of hue and saturation of a form is in the halftone near where the light transitions to shadow and some painters like to over emphasize that effect to turn the form.

Of course its overuse is also common because someone is told it could happen and then includes it in every painting they ever make whether its appropriate or not. Also a lot of painters tone their under paintings with a warm middle tone to get rid of the white of the canvas letting it peek through to unify the painting. And then there are Hensche students that just paint formulaic candy colored crap most of the time because he taught them to and start by toning their canvas cad red.

My advice is paint things the way you observe them when outdoor painting, until you have a reason to exaggerate them for a specific idea you have for the image.

Thanks! That cleared up a lot of things. Due to my frustrations I just considered it to be like the penumbra of your typical cast shadow but with a different hue.
But what bothers me the most is why does it only appear around the edges of the cast shadows?

[mistersomes]

Could also be from working from photographs where the colour of the sunlight is desaturated in the fully-lit areas due to overexposure.

Maybe that's why I can't seem to remember If I've really observed these things in real life or not. I gotta go outside and observe more often

[mistersomes]

Self-conscious stylistic fillip.

What do you mean by that?

[dpaint]

You can see it is an affectation of the artist in the second and third images. The second image the orange effect is darker than the core shadow because the artist failed to see its value correctly, instead they focused on its hue and chroma; and in the third image where the effect, seemingly caused by sunlight and therefore global, is only on the right side of the image and not the left. Elwell's assessment of Self-conscious stylistic fillip is right on.

[mistersomes]

Thanks for the answers everyone!

[JeffX99]

This effect or phenomenon of light is called "halation"...which is simply the bleeding over of one color into another or the brighter values into the dark. It's most noticable with shadow edges in really humid, smoky or dusty conditions where the light bounces through so much particulate material it is softened and scattered.

Other halation effects exist as well such as when you look through leaves or branches toward the sun.

[QueenGwenevere]

For what it's worth, wearing glasses and/or having some vision problems could also produce a similar effect... I see thin lines of zingy bright color at the edges of things all the time, most noticeably along edges of high contrast (like a dark building against a bright sky.) When I see them, they're hairline thin, and usually electric blue or orange but might be other colors. I suppose some people might see thicker lines, or maybe they just go in for exaggeration...

(I think it's mostly because of my glasses, but it's hard to compare with and without glasses... Without my glasses I just see blur.)

With migraine aura I see crazy psychedelic colors and lights all over everything. If I painted that exactly the way I see it, nobody would believe it was accurate.

Oh man, I should totally paint in aura mode now...

[Elwell]

Yes, what you're seeing is from your glasses, it's chromatic aberration, the bane of lensmakers everywhere.

[Psychotime]

Ah, so that's what it's called.

[briggsy@ashtons]

These photos show the common photographic artifact that seems to have inspired this particular "stylistic fillip". The orange streaks here are not physical phenomena and were not at all visible at the time; they are purely the result of overexposure in the fully lit areas, causing desaturation of the afternoon sunlight colour compared to the penumbral regions. The pairs of details were taken seconds apart, with identical settings except for exposure.

[Alice Herring]

For what it's worth, wearing glasses and/or having some vision problems could also produce a similar effect... I see thin lines of zingy bright color at the edges of things all the time, most noticeably along edges of high contrast (like a dark building against a bright sky.) When I see them, they're hairline thin, and usually electric blue or orange but might be other colors. I suppose some people might see thicker lines, or maybe they just go in for exaggeration...

(I think it's mostly because of my glasses, but it's hard to compare with and without glasses... Without my glasses I just see blur.)

Ugh. I don't miss that! (the blur or the chromatic aberration) Or how if I looked left greens would shift with the direction, and reds would move in the opposite direction...so strange hot pinks against bright blues were bad too. (I recommend Lazers, QG. LAZERS IN YOUR EYE.)

Anyway, some awesome responses!

[Psychotime]

(I recommend Lazers, QG. LAZERS IN YOUR EYE.)

This guy would disagree.

[kev ferrara]

The variety of effects you see outdoors is endless.

The way in which bad artists misunderstand these effects and botch them on canvas is also quite impressive.

Light often blanches out color where it most directly hits, leaving the midtones less blanched and more locally colored.

On hot humid days you can get more refraction in the air which leads to some strange color effects where light meets shadow, or where shadow doesn't have a sharp edge, etc.

Go outside every day and observe what interests you, and learn to trust your eyes only. See the world for yourself.

[JeffX99]

The variety of effects you see outdoors is endless.

The way in which bad artists misunderstand these effects and botch them on canvas is also quite impressive.

Light often blanches out color where it most directly hits, leaving the midtones less blanched and more locally colored.

On hot humid days you can get more refraction in the air which leads to some strange color effects where light meets shadow, or where shadow doesn't have a sharp edge, etc.

Go outside every day and observe what interests you, and learn to trust your eyes only. See the world for yourself.

Fuck. Yes.