What Color is a Yellow Object in Shadow? (Patreon)

I wanted to look specifically into what happens to a yellow object (in a still life situation) as it falls into shadow. I studied 4 paintings and they all followed the same pattern, just to varying degrees.

I didn’t want to pick on any specific painting, but while looking for yellow still lifes I found some that were ineffective. I think one of the most common mistakes is to cool the shadows or play it safe and paint them very grey, leading to a flat unrealistic shadow.

I plan to continue this exploration of yellow, next time with my own still life and manipulating the bounce light from surrounding colors.

✦Exercise (beginner) - Find a painting you like that has a yellow object in it. Color pick the local color and shadow, plus any other variations you can find such as core shadow, bounce light, and occlusion shadow. Paint a simple sphere using these colors. Be sure to include the background color too!

✦Exercise (advanced) - Do the above assignment, but without color picking! If you need to check your color accuracy, swatch them over the original painting.