# Shadows

A path can be visually enhanced using shadows with the 2D context object. A shadow is an area around the path with an offset, color and specified blurring. For this you can specify a `shadowColor`, `shadowOffsetX`, `shadowOffsetY` and a `shadowBlur`. All of this needs to be defined using the 2D context. The 2D context is your only API to the drawing operations.

A shadow can also be used to create a glow effect around a path. In the next example, we create a text “Canvas” with a white glow around. All this on a dark background for better visibility.

First, we draw the dark background:

```
// setup a dark background
ctx.strokeStyle = "#333"
ctx.fillRect(0,0,canvas.width,canvas.height);
```

then we define our shadow configuration, which will be used for the next path:

```
// setup a blue shadow
ctx.shadowColor = "#2ed5fa";
ctx.shadowOffsetX = 2;
ctx.shadowOffsetY = 2;
ctx.shadowBlur = 10;
```

Finally, we draw our “Canvas” text using a large bold 80px font from the *Ubuntu* font family.

```
// render green text
ctx.font = 'bold 80px sans-serif';
ctx.fillStyle = "#24d12e";
ctx.fillText("Canvas!",30,180);
```

![image](/files/D4yJo7KTefy3fQbR1AEF)


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