When shadowColor is set to some colour and a shape is rendered, the shadow is not drawn iff shadowBlur = shadowOffsetX = shadowOffsetY = 0.
Created attachment 16363 [details] test case This should draw the shadow first, then draw the rectangle on top, with the XOR compositing resulting in a transparent canvas. If you set shadowBlur or shadowOffset{X,Y} before drawing the shadow, then it works as expected.
What does the HTML5 spec say about this?
Quoth HTML5: "Shadows are only drawn if the opacity component of the alpha component of the color of shadowColor is non-zero and either the shadowBlur is non-zero, or the shadowOffsetX is non-zero, or the shadowOffsetY is non-zero." http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#shadows