By Candlelight, work in progress. Scratchboard, 12 x 9 in. Copyright 2008, Tania Nault.
Sorry about the photograph, bad lighting. This WIP will be the start of the project based on my Joseph Wright of Derby study.
Maggie Stiefvater posted a recent challenge to join in her May artist(s) study (yes, “artists” as in more than one; unlike me, who has taken forever to get to this point, Maggie studies artists at the speed of light and has posted studies of at least four other artists on her blog in the past few weeks). The challenge was to find an artist we admire, identify his/her strengths and techniques and then blog about it. I decided joining her challenge would be a great way for me to finish my study of Wright.
Wright’s strengths:
- amazing sense of light and shadow: I think the “and shadow” part of that observation is particularly important; there’s something deep in those shadows, they aren’t simply the absence of light, they have a weight and substance of their own
- human drama: Wright’s subjects react with/to each other and their surroundings in a very evocative way
- composition: Wright used light and shadow to create form, but also to move the viewer’s eye around the painting
As I work on my own candlelight image I’m going to keep those things in mind and we’ll see where it takes me.
