Studio Lighting

Northern (indirect) light is wonderful, it has a neutral blue leaning quality that allows a relatively constant and even lighting for long periods of time. Natural sunlight has a color rendering index or CRI of 100 and Kelvin of around 5500. These numbers are important to the artist for only one reason, accurate artificial lighting.

I have found consistent indirect light hard to come by. My problem lies in that my home has too much lighting from the east and west and none from the south or north. This lighting is neither consistent, nor indirect due to my homes positioning to the suns travel throughout the day. To counteract this I rely on painting once the sun has set or is setting, and the use of artificial lighting.

When searching for lighting attempt to find bulbs that have a CRI and Kelvin as close to natural light as possible. Don’t fall into the trap of getting expensive “art” lighting and bulbs. Much cheaper bulbs and setups can be easily found with a little reading (or online).

Once set up they will seem much too blue, especially if you were using incandescents in the room previous to setting up the new lighting. This is normal as most normal bulbs have a yellow cast to them. Allow time for your eyes to adjust (or do this in the day with the room naturally lit to minimize the perception shift).

If possible set you lighting up to minimize reflections but maximize an even coverage on your painting area (especially on your palette!) and your setup. It’s really important to get you palette lit correctly as this is where all your mixing takes place, if you’re off here you’re painting will be off as well.

Two Orange Slices and Peal

8 x 10 inches
Oil on Panel

The photograph above is quite lacking, I hadn’t retouched the painting yet so it was impossible to get the lighting not to wash out some areas, the peels shadow suffers the most from this phenomena. The colors to the left are more accurate. Also, to be perfectly honest this is actually a Clementine not an orange, but orange is a much more accessible word for a search so… orange it is.

One of the problems that I’ve run into with beginning to frame that I had never thought of appeared: I sign panels too low. What I mean by this is that since I’ve signed so far down into the corner I’ve made it so that once framed, the signature is covered, oops. Another step in learning the proper forms of painting and it’s presentation.

When painting on gallery wrapped canvas, as I always have before, you do not worry about where your signature goes. For if it is even framed, which they are normally not, then it is a floater, or strip frame leaving the entire face of the painting open. Panel, on the other hand, requires that a portion of the painting face (from as little and an eighth of an inch to as much as half an inch) is covered by the frame. It’s all so the painting doesn’t fall out!

Olio Verde experiment, copper and oil left in window sill

I’ve been producing a very small amount of Olio Verde since January 25. This is an oil, I’m using linseed and it’s my preference, infused with copper.

To produce it I’ve simply placed some old pure copper pennies into the oil and threw it into my window sill where the heat of the day and light of the sun will create reactions with the copper and oil, forming a copper linoleate (or copper soap, thanks to George OHanlon for that information.). This oil is said to aid in drying, and also in the resistance of fungus and molds. As time progresses I’ll post more on this interesting medium.

Ten Seeds and a Slice of Pomegranate

5.5 by 6 inches

Oil on Panel

This is the smallest I’ve ever worked! I had a small scrap leftover from the dibond I cut up leftover, I had thought to just toss it but ended up painting this instead. I enjoyed working on this one.

It’s surprising how much working small forces you to really think out your brush strokes and ideas. While working large I always just place things however I feel, there’s plenty of room to add and fix things latter. By moving my scale down I feel I finally started thinking my painting through more throughly before I go into starting them. It’s great not to wipe out half a dozen times before you get something you enjoy!

The Deskilling of Painting

After reading one of my usual spots today, I came across an interesting new term, deskilling. Here’s what it means:

Deskilling (From Wikipedia): The process by which skilled labor within an industry or economy is eliminated by the introduction of technologies operated by semiskilled or unskilled workers. Work is fragmented, and individuals lose the integrated skills and comprehensive knowledge of the crafts persons.

The original meaning of the word was strictly meant for industrial work, as the Wiki example states: “CNC machine tools replacing machinists and assembly line workers replacing artisans and craftsmen.” That last little portion, “artisans and craftsmen” is what got me to thinking.

The skills of painters in the past have been set aside, by a belief that a well and correctly constructed painting is no longer necessary. The contemporary artist, putting aside the past, feels that unlike every other single aspect of life, that the rules and skills of their craft are unneeded, undesirable, and limiting. Art has become a cheap thrill, meant to promote, shock, or instigate. Want to paint with motor oil? No problem, just make sure to light it aflame and talk about the transience of existence.

Deskilling also perfectly illustrates how artists have lost their technical skills, we have allowed ourselves to do whatever we want, not because of some higher ‘art’, but rather because we lack the ability, and the ambition, to learn our craft correctly. This is furthered by art critics, for example:

I don’t look for skill in art; I look for originality, surprise, obsession, energy, experimentation, something visionary, and a willingness to embarrass oneself in public. Skill has nothing to do with technical proficiency; it has to do with being flexible and creative. I’m interested in people who rethink skill, who redefine or reimagine it: an engineer, say, who builds rockets from rocks.

Jerry Saltz

While I understand his want, I do not agree that technical proficiency should be removed from the equation. I, unlike Mr. Saltz, would not like an engineer who built rockets from rocks. For no matter how innovative and shocking it may be, an engineer has no desire to build rockets from rocks. They are well aware of their limits, tools, materials, and skills required for the job at hand. An engineer that is not ends up with the “Big Dig.”