Close your eyes and picture a yellow beach umbrella on the sandy beach. The sun is shining up above, and you can see the shadow of the umbrella on the sand. The shadow probably goes across your beach towel, and over the cooler and snacks that are near your towel.

Ask yourself what color is the shadow?

Before I started learning how to paint photorealism with colored pencils and ink, I thought shadows were sort of purplish, sometimes blue or grey.

Now I’ve learned to see way more detail. That’s what photorealism painting is all about – precise details.

Shadows are not only one color. They also include colors that are reflected by the yellow umbrella at the beach. A shadow at the beach makes the sand at the beach a darker color, so the sand in the shadow is a darker tan than the sand in the sun. When you look carefully, you’re likely to see some yellow from the umbrella on part of the shadow, too.

Here’s another example – crayons on a table.

When the crayons are next to each other and there’s a light above them, you’ll see the reflected colors in the shadow and on the crayons. For example, the yellow-green crayon reflects some yellow-green on the blue crayon next to it. And there’s a reflection of the orange crayon onto the table.

As you go for a walk, notice the “extra” colors that are in a shadow.

It’s those extra colors that give the objects around us depth and dimension.