Portrait Painting Tip #3: The fall of light

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James Gurney has an excellent article on the color zones of the face with examples and I will refer you to it
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/05/color-zones-of-face.html

To recap his article:

• The forehead is the lightest/brightest part of the face
• The middle portion of the face from ear to ear including cheeks and nose is the reddest(warmer) part of the head.
• The lower section of the face below the nose is the grayer and cooler than the other 2 sections.

In his article he mentions capillaries and veins being the reasons for the local color zones of the face.

Apart from the local color of the zones of the face, I want to talk about the fall of light. Consider a head lit from above. If you think of a head as being shaped like an egg, the forehead is the top of the egg and it receives maximum light. As we move away from the top, the light gets weaker and weaker until it meets the core shadow(the point beyond there is no direct light on the egg). You can see this effect in the photo of the egg. By this consideration, you can see why the forehead is the brightest and chin is grayer and less bright as it recedes away from the light. This is known as the fall of light and it is a thing of beauty. You can observe it on any surface. As you get further away from the light source, the light effect gets weaker and duller.

Here is a beautiful example of this by Za Vue. You can clearly see the 3 color zones of the face with the forehead being the bright and golden, the middle section is red from ear to ear and the lower section below the nose is cool and grey. As always, these color zones relate to each other, meaning the cheeks are redder than the forehead, the chin is grey compared to forehead and cheeks. Please note that despite these observations the whole lit side of the face belongs to the light value family(See Portrait painting Tip #2 for more)





Also See Portrait Painting Tip #1, Tip #2, Tip#4