The Difference Light Makes!

During the course of planning a class lesson on designing light spaces in a painting, I decided to set up a still life with a grouping of white dishes. I put them on two place mats at the end of my dining room table. Two windows were facing the table. Wanting to eliminate all of the other things in the background, I decided to put a Japanese screen behind the dishes. I've used this screen before; I bought it in a museum store in Kyoto and it is one of my favorite things.

Here is the original set up.

I left the arrangement for three days, waiting for some interesting light to happen. Finally in late afternoon of the third day, the afternoon light shone on it, and here is my reference photo.

And here is the finished painting. It's 20 x 28" on Arches 300# paper.

I thought I would share this as you may find the example of how light gave me something much more interesting than the physical objects themselves.