Entry 42

 Vincent van Gogh 's Painter on His Way to Work

 image taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_Van_Gogh_0013.jpg

I feel like I keep talking about two things in the blog, color and shadows. I don't know why I fixate on these two aspects of light. Maybe it's because they are the first things we notice about a scene, maybe it's because as an artist color and shadows are my bread and butter, or maybe it's because as a novice lighting designer they are the only aspects of light I can really talk about since they are so easy to examine.  Still I am always surprised by just how much a single shadow can do. Take Vincent van Gogh's Painter on His Way to Work, there is only one shadow in this piece and yet the work still rings true. In a realistic environment the sun would be casting shadows of the trees at the very least and maybe even a bit of the wheat in the background. There is a surprising lack of shadow in the painting and yet it still took me a moment to realize this, for quite a while a single shadow was all I needed for this scene to feel truthful.