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Hi

I was wondering if any of you had any recommendations for lamps to paint by? I mostly paint quite dark colours, but the yellow-ish lights in my room make those pretty hard to pick out once any natural sunlight is gone (plus being in the North of England means esp in these months I get precious little sunlight as it is). Does anyone have anything they'd recommend, or any more general tips.
As always, cheers for feedback and thanx fer looking

Poser McBogus

I use Ikea desk lamps. They have good LED bulbs, are on a 10" flexible stand, and have a clip instead of a base. The other big selling point is that they are only £10 each. With two of those and I can paint all night and get great results.

I've got one of these:

Naturalight 5-inch Magnifying Lamp https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002C3MLAU/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_5MnYwbE3N60RE

Although to my shame I've not managed to try it out yet...

I have a couple OTT lamps (brand name) with full spectrum light - I also have two standing lamps that I use, that I put daylight (full spectrum) lightbulbs in

You can get a fairly cheap lamp and do that, put daylight bulbs in - something with a goose neck I'd say, so you can adjust it. Then if you need more just get another.

I use a magnifier lamp. Not sure what the model is though.

 JamesY wrote:
I use Ikea desk lamps. They have good LED bulbs, are on a 10" flexible stand, and have a clip instead of a base. The other big selling point is that they are only £10 each. With two of those and I can paint all night and get great results.

Same here, I have two to give my workspace some defuse light, I went with the softer bulbs too so I wouldn't burn out my retinas.

You can get a varity of nice lamps (including the very expensive OTT lights).

However, you can also just change out the bulbs in your current lamps (or pick up any other lamps) and put full spectrum or daylight or white light bulbs in them.

works great.

Best of luck!

Crispy78 wrote:
I've got one of these:

Naturalight 5-inch Magnifying Lamp https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002C3MLAU/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_5MnYwbE3N60RE

Although to my shame I've not managed to try it out yet...

I use one of these too ^^ it's great!

I got an OTTlight on ebay for 99c, it's awesome

I also have an OttLite. I got one from Jo-Ann Fabrics with a broken magnifier sold as-is for $20. If you keep an eye out, you should be able to pick one up at 40% off at places like Jo-Ann, Hobby Lobby, etc.

It depends a little on your budget, IMO.

The runaway best deal is a simple clamp-on desk lamp with an articulating arm. They're maybe $15, add on a nice, 100W+ equivalent daylight (cool) lightbulb, either CFL or LED.

Probably the most helpful is an articulating magnifier style lamp, not so much because of the magnifier, but because the bulb is circular (or a circular pattern of LEDs). The nice thing about these is that it lights a really nice work radius. The downside is that a good one is probably $80+, and the cheap ones have really flimsy articulating parts, which is important because the head is relatively heavy.

If you want to light the room, you want the lights closer to the ceiling, so some kind of fixture is useful in that case. Of course, that might not be easy to install.

If you want to light a large area, any constant lighting solution or photography will give you good results. You can get, fairly inexpensively (less than $100), tripods with one or more CFL bulbs that are the equivalent of 450W incandescents. So, a dual-bulb solution would give you 900W equivalent, with maybe a 160W draw, and literally flood a work area with light. The downside: it will be mounted on a tripod, which takes up a reasonable amount of floor space.

I use a "Larry light" that has a magnet on the back to keep it held onto the box fan that i work next to. It's 60 lumens and i got it for free so IMO it does the job.

At my FLGS I noticed painting stations set up that use regular LED desk lamps. One of those is probably a good place to start off if you're looking for something inexpensive.

if you want something more you can buy something like a Halide setup with a warmer bulb in it which will allow you to see the colors of your paints for what they really are.

Peff,

Halogen lamps pointed indirectly. Bright as midday and not a lot of deep shadows. I never had a problem with a single big lamp in the center of the room.

You don't necessarily want a 'warmer' or 'cooler' light. Ideally you'd want a light that's more like natural sunlight.

el cheapo lamp from K-Mart with a daylight LED globe (the globe cost more than the lamp IIRC)

 Talys wrote:
Probably the most helpful is an articulating magnifier style lamp, not so much because of the magnifier, but because the bulb is circular (or a circular pattern of LEDs). The nice thing about these is that it lights a really nice work radius. The downside is that a good one is probably $80+, and the cheap ones have really flimsy articulating parts, which is important because the head is relatively heavy.

I'm using one of those at the moment Talys (mine was AU$140 so not the cheapest) and find it adequate, but there are times when I wish it was more powerful.

My plan then is to upgrade to one of these in the near future: http://www.daylightman.com.au/index.php/lights-and-magnification/table-lamps/led-task-lamp-xr-detail

I have a magnifier lamp from Maplin with a daylight bulb it's unfortunately out of Commission but it lasted about 4 years, being on for long periods. The fault was also a failure of the starter circuit board thingy, which i'd imagine is pretty rare.

It was only ~£30 (most of the other recommendations in this thread, that look pretty much identical, are considerably more than that) and replacement parts are easily available, and reasonably priced, from Maplins online store. The lamp is also a doddle to replace (unfortunately for me it wasnt the fault! )

Here. Free delivery!

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/22w-fluorescent-daylight-magnifier-lamp-a29ff

EDIT for reference, the picture i used for my avatar was taken with it being the only light source, no flash.