Sometimes the simplest subjects teach us the most. In this tutorial we’ll use a plain white ball to explore tone, lighting, reflected light and cast shadows without the distraction of lots of colour. I’ll show you how changing the position of a light source alters the size and strength of the shadow, then we’ll mix a useful neutral grey from our three primary colours and use different strengths of that mixture to create convincing three-dimensional form. We’ll practise working with glazes, dropping colour into wet areas, softening edges and lifting light back out of the paper. You can work slowly in stages or have a little fun letting the colours move and mingle wet in wet. This is such a valuable exercise for developing observation. Once you begin to recognise the highlight, mid-tones, reflected light and darkest shadows on a simple sphere, you’ll find it much easier to see them in more complicated subjects too.
