What's the Best Lighting to Use In An Art Studio?

Lighting to Create Artwork By
Natural lighting is of course, the best lighting to work in when you are creating any art. However, there is no simple or correct answer for lighting your completed artworks. Understanding theses differences should help you to decide.

Oil, canvas, pigment and papers are sensitive materials and will deteriorate when exposed to UV light. Infrared isn’t as damaging, but does produce heat which will dry out canvas and crack the paint. 

Natural Sunlight

Natural light contains ultraviolet and infrared rays, which can damage works of art. Works on paper (watercolors, prints, photographs, etc) and fabrics are especially vulnerable and can fade rather quickly - especially in direct sunlight. Sunlight’s ability to render color is unmatched because of it’s perfect blend of all natural colors of the spectrum, but for lighting art, it's out of the question.

Fluorescent Light

How many of you work under fluorescent lighting all day? Fluorescent lights give off high amounts of ultra violet rays. Not as high as sunlight, true, but high enough to be harmful. They also don't emit light across the entire color spectrum. Have you ever noticed how fluorescent office lighting adds a greyish cast to your complexion? – Well it does the same for the artwork!

Incandescent Light

Incandescent lighting enhances warm colors in artwork and washes out the cool colors. If effectively flattens the look of compositions that are predominantly blue, green, purple, etc. While incandescent is less harmful than fluorescent or natural lighting, it's still a poor solution for showing off your artwork. However.... WE look MUCH better under incandescent lighting (and even better under candlelight....)!

Halogen Light

Halogen light emits a strong, white light that renders color at levels near that of sunlight. When used in lighting paintings, a low watt halogen based bulb needs to be filtered, adjustable, dim-able and kept indirect. Indirect lighting is less harmful and hot spots are EXTREMELY bad.

Solution?

The best solution may be a combination of indirect, low watt, filtered halogen and incandescent lighting. Whatever you do, keep your work out of direct sunlight and watch for that 'bouncing' sunlight.