Help with lighting and tone

[EllieRuffer]

Hi guys...

I've been planning a painting of Lothlorien from Lord of the Rings for a long time, and I am almost ready to start on canvas...

But my weakness is getting the tone right. I've done this (VERY ROUGH) sketch of the basic composition and proportions, but I want the sun to come from behind the trees - the time of day would be sunset. I'm struggling to understand where my light and dark are gonna go if the sun is coming from behind. It's not a perspective that I've dealt with before (I'm a beginner).

Oh, and the little triangles hanging from the trees will be lamps - green, yellow, and white. My plan is to have the triangles in bright colours, with some blended blur in the immediately surrounding area. I don't want the whole area to be lit up with these random colours.

If anyone wants to help me with some tips on tone and lighting, I'll be happy to hear them. I know this might not come under the umbrella of what SVS does...but you guys are super talented and awesome, so I know you'll put me in the right direction.

Thanks, guys.

Ellie

[Lee White]

Hi Ellie, I would check out my lighting and shadow course. And then check out Will's Painting Color and Light. If you do those classes in order, you should learn a lot.

In my opinion, this piece is nowhere near ready to go to final. You need to do some lighting and tonal studies first to get a better sense of the overall local tones and lighting. If it proves a little too tricky to pull this off right now, scale your scene down to a few buildings. Big environments with custom lighting are tricky. The smaller the scale, the easier it is to control.

[Rachel Horne]

@EllieRuffer I struggle with lighting and shadows a lot, I don't know why it's so hard. Anyway I took Lee's class that he mentions above and it helped a lot...I haven't done Will's yet though but I probably will now. Good luck