Daylight hours in February and what they do to the work
February in Gothenburg gives you maybe five hours of usable light and almost none of it lines up with when I can actually sit down. The last two weeks I've been arranging paper by lamp light and then having to redo half of it the next morning because the shadows lied to me.
I bought one of those cheap full-spectrum lamps everyone swears by. I think it just makes me hate the sun more when it finally shows up. The palette I work with is all aged cream and grey so I notice even small shifts in the light, which is a curse.
I've started keeping the current piece on the table overnight and just looking at it first thing, before coffee, in whatever light is there. Ten minutes, no touching. It's the only honest look I get all day.
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
the full-spectrum lamp thing is such a scam and yet we all fall for it. i got one last winter and it just made me realize my studio is basically a cave with a window tax.
the shadows lying thing is real though. i work flat and bold so i don't notice light shifts as much, but every now and then a piece sits overnight and the morning light catches it and i'm like oh. that's what i actually made. brutal.
tbh five hours of good light sounds almost romantic from here but i know i'd hate it within a week. hope the paper stops gaslighting you soon.
the morning reveal is the real artist statement, isn't it. everything you convinced yourself about under the lamp just dissolves.
window tax, that's the phrase. i've been calling it my light bill but that's much better.
and don't romanticize it. you'd spend the whole winter rearranging furniture to chase a patch of sun across the floor like a plant. the lamp stays though. it's useless but it's warm and it hums and honestly that's most of what i need it for at this point.