Spilling Light (Part 2 of 3: The Brilliance of Light)
by Tracey Maras
Do you color within the lines? Or are you one of those who feels that lines are meant to be crossed? In the case of halation, lines need to be crossed.
Halation is the spreading of light beyond its proper boundaries to form a fog around the edges of a bright image (Source: Oxford Languages Dictionary). It is a term commonly used in photography. But it is a term and a practice with which, as artists, we need to be familiar.
Imagine the sun is setting behind a line of distant trees. While at first glance the trees appear to be silhouetted almost to black, we notice that near the sun the trees become burgundy and then grow in intensity to a flaming bright red. But the sun is behind the trees. How can the side we are viewing be brightly lit and red?
There is a science to halation. But I won’t turn this into a physics lesson. Just recognize the immense power of the sun’s light spilling over and around objects in the landscape. It can obliterate what we would normally paint as hard, solid edges. Nearest the light source of the sun, mountains and trees will glow red. The edges of buildings or tree trunks disintegrate into a haze of light.
“Shimmer”, by Tracey Maras. Pastel.
By recognizing the effects of halation and making sure we incorporate those elements of spilled light into our paintings, we keep silhouetted elements from appearing cut out and pasted onto our painting. By allowing the light to embrace the elements, the silhouettes become an integral part of the scene rather than an afterthought.
Color outside the lines. Embrace it as the light embraces that distant line of trees.
This post has been republished here with permission. For more by Tracey Maras, visit her website, www.traceymaras.com.
