See this post
http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...&threadid=1425
That is a example of a professional studio and proper lighting.
There is no reason to fight bad lighting, either on our canvas or your subject. Since it is my understanding that this is a Forum for the professional portrait artist, or those who want to be, I will make no apologies for the sake of the hobbyist painters who may read this.
If you are going to be a professional portrait painter you should have a professional studio space to work in. If you were going to start your own business doing auto service you would not try and work in a small garage with no lift and with only a small set of tools. No, you would either build or buy or lease a garage space to suit your business needs and equip it with all the necessary tools.
Now we all start in our homes as a work space and as I see it most homes just are not planned with the artist's needs in mind.
Rooms in homes I see as two types.
In one type, the room is plenty large enough but the room is designed to flood the room with light with windows on all sides. This is too much light from too many directions.
The second is the small room with a single small windows or maybe two windows, but neither one making it possible to have both good light on your subject and on your canvas.
I have tried to work in both of these and neither one is ideal or what I would consider a suitable for a professional artist.
Another problem, at least in my northern area, is homes are built with the most windows on the south and east side to get the most passive solar heat and light during the winter months. Now, this is wonderful to make pleasant rooms to live in with a lot of glowing light. But these are horrible rooms to paint in as the direction, intensity and color of this light is constantly changing through out the day.
Now what should you do if you have no room large enough with good north light? Well as I do, you make do. You find the room in the house that is the least bad and make it do, until you can either modify an existing room or build or rent new space.
It may be that the large room with too much light has north facing windows on one side; block off all the other windows (at least when you are working) and you are in business.
Or, if you have room large enough on the north side of our home but the window is too small to allow both light on your subject and your canvas, a trip to your local home center and order a larger window. Cut a hole in your wall and put it in. It is a lot of work but not beyond the skill of a even the basic handy man. You can find the knowledge of framing and carpentry needed at you local library or the book section of your home improvement center. Now this may sound extreme but is it? Are you serious about this career as an artist or not?
And don