Analysis of light and color in images

Lighting & Color

                                         Alexa Meade - 'Split in two', from 'people painted'

A simple example of lighting and color is the image shown above whereby you can see all the difference in colors, lighting, shadowing in one. Alexa Meade is an artist who depicts these styles perfect and uses them to their highest abilities.

Lighting and Color is something that every artist struggles with, especially when trying to paint a picture. The reason behind this is that lighting and color will change every second, whether something is standing still or even if there's direct light. The reasons for this is because the lighting is something that brings out the color and with it bouncing off objects, materials and things it will always be changing until the light source cannot reach its next object. Take the sun for instance, it can only reach so far and having the Earth rotating 24/7 it cannot shine an exact light onto something all of the time without the shadow, color or even the light itself moving. 

Alexa Meade is someone who is able to capture, lighting and color very well through using humans to move and adjust to whatever lighting is necessary. From the picture shown above 'Split in two' she allows her artist to paint herself and then she would then go and paint her at a the same time to see the difference in color outcomes. She does this so that she can use both an image and a painting to be her reference so that she can have more of a theatrical feel to her work rather than just a 2D piece of work. Although she works a lot like this using colors to brighten areas and not even using some colors at some points she does like to indulge in just using one solid color and going from there to create a painting. 

    Alexa Meade - 'Blueman' or 'Blueprint', again from 'people painted'

As you can see from the above shown painting, Alexa uses just a bland blue color with different shades to give off detail of a man sitting alone in a chair. She starts just by using blue and blue only and then any lighting that needs to be added she uses a much lighter color, but only one. By doing this she is imprisoning the blue color to create detail and shadowing effects. The contrast between the man and the background allows for people to focus on the man in the chair rather than any other part of the image, not only that but by darkening his eyes when not needed just so you'd focus on his face and his posture/emotion. 

I believe Alexa Meade catches light, color & shadowing perfectly in both pieces which is why I wished to use them in this write-up.