Taking It Light

Don't get stressed about spending tons of extra cash

on your lighting.  Happily for all of us, there are great

options for lighting the art in our homes without breaking

the bank.  Chances are you home is equipped w i t h

incandescent lighting. Incandescent bulbs put out light

in a fairly open and wide angle. Many times people will find

this to be a weak light for the colors of their art and then go

purchase halogen lights.

Halogen lighting is much stronger than incandescent

lighting but beginners have the tendency to over do it

and buy halogen floodlights. You will find by using high-

powered floodlights your artwork will start to take on a

whitish or grayish cast. If the wattage on the bulb is too

high for the artwork you'll see a bleached out or faded

effect.

Galleries who pay attention to their lighting will be

very specific about how their lights are set and will make

sure the lighting effect is one economically and

readily duplicated in the home environment.  Most

galleries will use halogen spotlights, with bulbs listed as

9-degree or 12-degree spots, no more than this. They

will also never use bulbs past 50 watts and w i l l

normally use 35-watt bulbs, which yield a warm golden

light.

In most cases one halogen spot is enough to

illuminate a painting, if the piece exceeds 50 inches in length

you may want to use 2 bulbs.  Good lighting is not

expensive, the bulbs you want are par 30, this is the size

of the bulb, halogen spot which is the type of bulb, 9

degree or 12 degree being the narrowness of the spot,

and of course 50 watt being the intensity of the bulb.