This is the first pass to the still life set-up of a simple rusty ladle. It’s under artificial lighting, and you can check out the poster study here. I’m attracted to the simplicity of the object, its colors and the old, rusty texture of the metal. And I just love the high contrast of the dark cast shadow to the light blasting the background and top section of the ladle.
I decided against a grisaille and started directly with an ébauche (first pass or underpainting, always in color – at least in the tradition/approach practiced by Bouguereau and other 19th Century painters), simply because the value range of the composition is so small and compressed. I wanted a base with color and value decisions in the underpainting to work off of for the following pass. It seemed that building on top of this and layering the textures on top of something with form, color and value made the most sense.
At Janus Collaborative School of Art, where I’m currently doing my art training, we work directly from the figure, under a gorgeous skylight/north light. As beautiful as it is to paint under natural light, I sometimes miss the dramatic contrast of light and shadow.
Caravaggio was a master of chiaroscuro and his naturalistic painting style was in direct contrast to the idealistic views during the Renaissance. This was quite effective in his religious, narrative paintings as the apostles and disciples were depicted as human instead of “godly” or mythical beings.
Sometimes he controlled the light source and light direction by blocking much of the strong light flooding in through a window or a door. Other times, he used candles to light his subjects. The areas of the subject nearest to the candlelight are very brightly lit and everything else rapidly turns into the shadow (since the light dissipates very quickly). Notice how the reflective light is minimized. Caravaggio often surrounded his subjects with dark cloth or dark walls in order to diminish any bounced light onto his subject.
This type of set-up is a very effective way to create a strong design and lead the viewers eye across the tableau. James Gurney writes more about chiaroscuro in his wonderful blog (which you should be following if you’re not already doing so). I’m far from a narrative painting (though sketchbooks are a great way to work out some of these ideas), but I’m using the opportunity of having access to such a wonderful studio to paint some subjects under dramatic lighting this summer. Plus, there are no city or street lights to get in the way of my shadows up here!
