Making up your light source from imagination

[Jennifer Bogartz]

I'm interested in trying this out on a still life. I've been studying chiaroscuro a little bit, and think that the masters (Caravaggio in particular) made some of this up, designing the light to create drama. I've set up a still life and turned off the lights, using a small flashlight as my light source. I've done this with a candle as well. I'm finding that the light is difficult to control. I don't want the background illuminated, and yet the flashlight reveals too much. The candle is nice and warm but kind of dangerous, I don't want to keep it burning for hours and dripping wax everywhere. I don't want to work in the dark, I've done that before and it's difficult to have any control over color. Do you think that it's possible to light a still life with a general light source in mind while ignoring it if it doesn't give me the effect I want? I'm worried I'm going to start copying what I see instead of conceptualizing it. How would you go about lighting a still life if you were trying to paint it with chiaroscuro? Has anybody done this?