Chiaroscuro, low-key painting (study)

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Chiaroscuro - (Italian) light - dark.
An art term used to describe the contrast between light and dark.

I was looking through artwork from several great classic masters like Caravaggio, Velazquez, Vermeer, Rembrandt, etc.  I love how they use simple lighting setups to create volume, contrast, composition.  For CEF lesson illustrations, I sometimes use black outlines to create separation for children to clearly see the Bible characters from a distance ... but I prefer to use adjacent light/dark shapes (and colour) to create the separation.  [interesting how often my characters just happened to be framed by a window or doorway. :-) ]

I was taking more reference photos this past week for a CEF promotional (Kids Packet).  A single diffused light source was used for the photos.  I was drawn to this particular photo with how the face was framed by the dark hair and winter coat.
This evening I made a digital oil painting study (practice), creating a low-key painting and incorporating strong contrast in areas, placing light/dark values against each other to create separation, shape/form, all to lead the eye.  It was a good learning exercise for me.

Hope you enjoy the painting.

Photo resources

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There is a constant need for photos in our work.  Having access to the right (quality) photos to effectively communicate the message is one of the biggest challenges we face in designing materials.

We have several options for getting photos.  There are online stock libraries which work in some instances but do not represent specific CEF ministries.  For CEF ministries in action we regularly request photos from our workers across Europe ... and then wait.  There are other times when photos are needed for a project requiring a certain lighting, setup, positioning, image quality, etc..

Here are some photos I took this past week of our European Director's grandchildren visiting from France.  They were great models.  While setting up the lights in their apartment I was reminded of what one photographer said, "Good portraits are 10% photography and 90% moving furniture!".
These photos will be part of a short 3-5 min. video I'm preparing that will be shown in churches across Europe and made available in many languages.  I was able to control the lighting and get the consistent results needed between all the photos in the project.  Photos like this can be used again for future literature projects.

Technical notes: I imported the photos into Adobe Bridge, edit them in Camera RAW, then opened in Photoshop to mask the subject from the background (creates a transparent background around subject).  This allows me to place the subject as a floating object against any background.