Reading by Aladdin Lamp

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Alex, I love the atmosphere you have created as well. One thing that struck me while looking at the painting is the symmetry . It's almost as if the lamp acts as the center to create a mirror reflection of the other side. Very interesting composition!

[Alexandra Tyng]

Originally Posted by Enzie Shahmiri

It's almost as if the lamp acts as the center to create a mirror reflection of the other side.

I never thought of that, but I see what you mean. Actually someone who knows both my husband and my brother now was not sure which one was which, or whether they were actually the same person! (Fortunately I have no trouble telling them apart.) Maybe that contributes to the mirror illusion.

[Marina Dieul]

Exciting composition , Alex !
I can only imagine the hard work it must have been controlling this composition and the values : the result seems effortless, a quiet athmospheric scene...
I immediately thought that the man in red was your brother as I can see a similarity with your nose and chin, but I have never seen your husband, so...

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thank you, Marina! It was exciting to paint because there was so much grey and only a small amount of color. You are, of course, a master of this kind of control even under "normal" lighting conditions, but most of my work has a lot of color in it, so this was a departure. Before I started I thought a lot about how I would achieve the subtlety of the color, and how much illusion of color (or implied color) I could get by using complementary colors to make grey, then varying the warm/cool mix to make various "colors." I only added more actual colors near the light.