Capturing shadows

On sunny days, I'm always happy to see that first sliver of sun light up the studio wall (shown in the upper left image), and it was my inspiration/starting point for January's 'addendum' to the ROY G BIV challenge: classic black & white. The silhouette cast by the Paperwhites I mentioned in my last entry also enticed me, but good old fashioned sunlight has been hard to come by in the last week, and they began to shrivel before I got to fully explore their potential. When I saw that the forecast called for rain every day this week—which would make shadows a scarce commodity indeed—I took along my camera on an errand-session on Monday so I could photograph a few splashes of black & white that my daughter and I had noticed on an outing last week (yes, she is also keeping her eyes open for me each month). Just as Montepulciano obliged for 'VIOLET' in November, black & white was in abundance in the streets of Florence, and it wasn't hard to find a thread to hold together the collection of images.

But then the grey blanket of clouds began to dissipate for a spell on Tuesday, so I balanced a blank canvas adjacent to the studio window and, between bursts of sunlight, started grabbing random objects to create shadows. The sun played a fast-paced game of hide-and-seek with the clouds, testing my patience, but soon I slowed down and started to enjoy the process itself: as always, there's plenty to capture the imagination in the little street below, and the swiftly moving clouds created some magic moments of their own.

All images below are shadows on canvas—with the exception of the leftover paper cuttings, which are scattered on a piece of Fabriano Ingres. I am quite enamored by 'scraps' from projects, and took quite a few photos of the paper strips, but the shadows weren't very striking compared to the effect of the larger objects projected onto the vertical surface of the canvas.


Waiting for the sun to strengthen the shadow of my pruning shears...

A few items in the studio: drafting brush; paper strips leftover from trimming a project; scissors; T-square & triangle...

Things from around the house: lamp; gingerbread man cookie cutter; hangers...

And the Paperwhites...

 

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The images from Monday's excursion are so different in spirit that I will post them tomorrow (though here's a peek)...

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And, meanwhile, another idea for capturing black & white came to mind; they will make a good introduction to one of the elements of my 12x12 project, so I'll post them in a few days. Here's a sneak peak...

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{I am still collecting names for the one-year-on-Blogger drawing. In case

you didn't see my last entry, anyone who leaves a comment or emails me by

the end of January will be eligible to win the item of their choice from my shop.

At the time, the end of January didn't seem that far away, though now I'm

realizing how long a wait is actually is! Thanks for your patience...}