Wherever you are in the world there will be a time of year when the beautiful, long summer days are gone and we’re left with very few hours of precious daylight.
In Sicily we have lovely long days in summer, but in winter it doesn’t get light until about 8.30 in the morning and it gets dark at around 5pm. So the daylight hours available are very limited.
If you work or you are busy during the day and your only free time is in the evening, or if your studio location is not ideal (for example your studio might be in a room with one small window) then you’ll be faced with the problem of lighting your workspace properly.
I’m sure you know that ordinary lights are not good for art or craft work (such as sewing or embroidery, etc). The reason for this is that ordinary light is too warm on the spectrum of light and this will give you a distorted vision of your colors.
An example of the light I use when painting
Before I give you more information on how to solve this problem, I just wanted to clarify what are the main areas that you need to illuminate properly. If you are painting (and it doesn’t matter the medium you’re using) you need to illuminate the subject you are painting, your palette and your easel, or table where you are painting.
But what kind of lamp do I need to buy? I hear you ask. When you buy a daylight lamp, look on the box, it should say: “daylight bulb” or “bright, full spectrum, natural, cool, daylight” or some combination of these words.
You should also look at the color temperature rating, this is measured in kelvin (K) and should be as close to 5500K as you can find.
This is because between 2700 and 3000K the light is warm and yellow; but above 5500 the light starts to have a bluish tone. Both of these will affect the way you perceive colors when you use the lamp, and your work will look very different when you look at it in the morning!
You can get these daylight lamps from Amazon or the daylight company or from many art shops.
So tell me, do you use a daylight lamp for your art or crafting? Are you lucky enough to have a well lit studio, or do you work in the basement?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Until next time
Create and be happy