My sustained investigation: How does lighting affect the narrative of a piece?
The Interior of a Stable - Abraham Pietersz Van Calraet
1. I like how the lighting in this piece creates an obvious focal point. The scene, being the inside of a stable, is pretty dark (aside from the sky from the doorway) except for the white horse in the centre that is so brightly lit it's as if it were glowing or shiny. I might want to implement this into my own work, especially because I want to try adding actual backgrounds to some of my future pieces.
2. I find just how starkly the horse is lit really interesting. I like the idea of something lit so intensely it appears to glow or be shiny against an otherwise dark background, sort of like how I painted Bjorn really bright on a "black" background to convey stage lighting. I think intense lighting has the potential to convey a lot of different narratives.
Head of Christ Crowned with Thorns - Guido Reni
3. I definitely want to try downward lighting at some point during my sustained investigation. I feel like in this piece (although Jesus's circumstances at this moment are quite unfortunate) it adds to his angelic, spiritual feel. I also like the way the light bouncing off the top of his cheekbone frames his eye, which is another result of the downward-facing face light.
Tears of Saint Peter - El Greco
4. It's hard to see in this photo (I couldn't find a better one) but in the face, there's a lot of very subtle but visible lines from brushstrokes, some so deep that they look almost like black lines. I want to focus more on the direction of my brush (or oil pastel) strokes because, especially when the focus is the lighting, they're relly important to conveying the form and shading on an object. Sometimes my shading looks a little bit muddy or doesn't make sense and that might take away from the lighting (because shading and values are what show the lighting.)
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