Art Atelier: Anatomy & Light

Art Atelier is a lighting studio for artists. Pick a subject, turn it in your hand, and move the key light until you understand exactly why the shadow falls where it does.

Built for painters and drawing students who want to study form — not trace photographs.

STUDY 18 SUBJECTS

• Planar head — the classic blocked-in head, as a full sculpt or as big simplified planes • Features — eyes, ear, nose, lips • Hands and feet — free-tumbling, so you can reach any orientation you need • Male and female skulls — the structure underneath the face • Casts & sculptures — Young Girl, Highlander Woman, Goethe, Schiller, Brutus, Marcus Aurelius • A sphere — where every lighting lesson starts

LIGHT IT LIKE A STUDIO

Seven classic setups, one tap each: Front, Rembrandt, Split, Butterfly, Top, Rim and Under. Then take the rig over yourself:

• Drag the key light anywhere around the subject, from eye level to overhead to below • Set key intensity, from a soft wash to a hard single source • Warm it or cool it — tungsten through to north-window light • Open up the ambient fill, or close it down to deep shadow

Everything relights in real time as you drag. Nothing to render, nothing to wait for.

SEE IN VALUES

• Posterize the scene to 2, 3, 4 or 5 flat value steps, so you read the big shapes before the detail • Switch between a detailed sculpt and blocked-in planes to find the underlying structure • Mirror the whole scene, the way you'd flip your canvas to check a drawing • Zoom in to work on a single feature, or pull back for the whole gesture

TURN IT ANY WAY YOU LIKE

Drag to rotate. Heads and busts turn on a turntable with a natural upright; hands and feet tumble freely, so you can hunt down the exact foreshortening you're trying to draw. Every angle, held as long as you need it — no model getting tired, no reference photo lit the wrong way.

HOW ARTISTS USE IT

• Warm up with ten-minute studies before a longer session • Work out the light on a portrait before you commit paint to canvas • Learn the classic portrait setups by seeing them, not by reading about them • Check what the planes of the cheek actually do when the light drops below the horizon • Practise value grouping with the posterize view, then draw it in full tone • Study cast shadow, form shadow, core shadow and reflected light as separate things

DESIGNED TO GET OUT OF THE WAY

A dark interface that won't blow out your night vision or compete with your subject. Light mode if you'd rather. One-handed controls so your drawing hand stays on the paper. No timers, no gamification, no streaks — just the model and the light.

Every subject and every tool works offline. No account to create, no ads, nothing tracking your practice.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

The planar head, eyes, ear, sphere and the Young Girl cast are free, with the full lighting rig and every value tool — enough to know within a minute whether the app suits how you work. A single one-time unlock opens all 18 subjects, permanently. No subscription.

Made by a painter, for painters.