If you’re into painting at all, you should have heard the terms direct light and diffuse light at least once.
They are an important part of colour theory.

(If you are the kind of painter who smears pigeon crap on a bit of canvas and sell it to art galleries, you can disregard the subject of colour theory entirely. Good for you!)

I won’t go into the detail of how direct light and diffuse light affect the perception of colours. Firstly, because the subject is massive. Secondly, better
people than me would give you a much clearer explanation on anything concerning colour theory.

I would just share with you a few basics.

On a sunny, dry day, objects are affected by three kinds of light: the soft blue light coming from the sky, the warm light bouncing from the ground and the sharp white light of the sun.
As a general rule, colours of surfaces facing up would shift towards cold, surfaces facing down would shift towards warm.
Vertical surfaces will in turn be warmer at the bottom and colder at the top.
This is just a rough rule of thumb, yet a pretty good one, keep it in mind!

Now, where are we likely to find this kind of light conditions? Italy is the answer. During the summer, in Italy, the sun shines bright and the sky is a deep, highly saturated blue.
In Italy the blue light bounces off everything, the tanned skin of people, the awesome food and, of course, surfaces facing up. These surfaces create a wonderful contrast with the warm ones facing down, making your paintings vibrant and merry.
Of course, you can’t be sure of the true colour of things because of the saturated light bouncing everywhere. However, why would you care? Just enjoy the awesomeness of colour!

Here’s an example of an Italian town under direct sunlight.

(Credit: I saved this pic from Reddit but I can’t find the thread anymore. If anyone knows it please tell me and I’ll update!)

Diffuse light, on the other hand, is the kind of light you get on an overcast day. That is, what you get under a grey, grim, miserably desaturated sky.
You don’t have significant bounce light under these conditions, or strong contrast between colds and warms. Or well defined edges and shadows, or fuzzy feelings of happiness.
Under outdoor diffuse light you get flat, depressing colours, and gradients from grey to slightly less grey.
Where’s the best place to paint a landscape under diffuse light?
England of course.
If for some reason you really want to paint under a cloudy sky, and possibly rain, that’s your place.
For colour theory’s sake, here’s an example of an average English landscape under average English light conditions.

As you can see, England can boast an entire range of greys. All the shades of grey are here, mostly dull greys but also some greenish greys and a few grey browns.

You can get to love them after a while.
It’s a bit more difficult if, like myself, you’ve just came back from a place with other colours and you’ve run out of holidays until January next year.
But yes, you can get to love them.
After a while.

by Paolo Puggioni

4 Responses

1. Michel says:

   August 18, 2012 at 20:46

   I’ve been visiting your blog for some time and I learned so much from it since I started coming here! Not only from your posts with your personal experience, but from your links as well (the one for feng zhu’s tutorials changed my life (not exaggerating)). So thanks!, you’re a great guy.

   Reply
   • Paolo Puggioni says:

     August 27, 2012 at 12:59

     Hey sorry I missed this comment, thanks a lot!

     Reply
2. Amanda Johnson says:

   June 6, 2018 at 14:54

   I’ve lived in England since 1978 (I have lived abroad) and disagree with your comments. Admittedly the weather has changed. But from the west we are bombarded with bad weather from the USA and the East, Siberia so being an island we are poorly located. Our weather mirrors the Netherlands, so we are not alone with our dull days. But we do get some fantastic weather and I get really fed up with people running the UK down. It’s beautiful here.

   Reply
   • Paolo Puggioni says:

     June 10, 2018 at 11:20

     I’m glad you like it there!

     However, the gray sky is pretty much a fact you can’t argue with:) As you can see here, the UK is very much at the bottom of the list when it comes to hours of sunshine per year, better only than the Faroe Islands and Iceland.

     The Netherlands, while still pretty bad, still enjoy about 200 more hours of direct sunlight per year when compared to the UK.

     Obviously it does get some sunny days. Hell, even Mordor did get some in the books:)
     But again, glad you’re happy there! I did live in England for 12 years, and to be fair the constant gray was one of the factors (obviously not the main one) that made me move to a 2873 hrs of sunlight per year country.

     Reply