Lighting can make a huge difference in how a person perceives an art piece. While the correct lighting can help in emphasizing its intrinsic features and bring more depth to the painting, bad lighting can even make “The Starry Night” look dull and lifeless.
Only an understands how frustrating it is to light the art studios.
Usually, it’s either too dim, bright, cool, warm, or glary and unless you can find the right balance in the brightness, contrast, and tones, your audience won’t be able to properly understand the depth of your artwork.
To understand how to perfectly light up your studio, we need to understand certain things about lighting and floor lamps first.
This post discusses how to choose the best floor lamp for art studio and 4 recommend floor lamp reviews.
So, let’s start…
In a Hurry? Look at These Top Pick Lamps:
Robust Aluminum Stand to Clip 4 Lights on, Great for Large Painting Studio: Daylight Floor Lamp
Full Spectrum Lighting with High Adjustability, Great for Drawing: Verilux Slim Floor Lamp
With Dual Heads for More Light Illumination, Great for Artists Who Have a Large Work Surface: Daylight Company LLC Lamp
With Natural Daylight to Provide High Color Accuracy, Cheap Price Tag: Brightech 2 in 1 Floor Lamp
What Color Rendering Index Does An Artist Need For Floor Lamps?
Unless you are a seasoned artist, you might not fully understand the importance of CRI(Color Rendering Index).
In simple language, CRI is the measure of the light source’s ability to vividly exhibit the color of any object in comparison to a natural light source such as sunlight.
The CRI index is ranked from 0 to 100. The closer the light source is to 100, the more realistic and true colors it can bring out.
To display the natural hues at their most vibrant, an artist should floor lamps with CRI between 80-100.
How Many Lumens Should a Floor Lamp Have to Light up an Art Studio?
After bringing out the natural hues, you need to focus on the luminosity around the room.
To regulate and balance the brightness across the room, you would need to find the right number of lumens it has. (Lumens is the SI unit to measure how much light you are getting out from a light source.)
To properly illuminate your studio apartment, you need to check the lumen count of the lamps and bulbs you are buying.
Even though light requirements vary according to the room dimensions, for a medium-sized art gallery, a total of 7000-8000 lumens would be sufficient.
And as most floor lamps typically produce around 800 – 1200 lumens, you can easily light up the area with 3 to 4 high CRI floor lamps.
How to Measure Lumen Requirements as Per Your Studio Size?
One way you can measure the approximate amount of lumen your studio needs is by using a value scale.
Once you have set up the lights, take a value scale and evaluate the intensity of your lights.
Pay more attention to white and black.
If the white looks light gray, you need more lumens and if the black shade appears as dark gray, then you need to reduce the intensity of lighting.
Repeat this process until every shade appears vividly distinct from each other.
Why Artists Should Buy A Daylight Floor Lamp?
To paint precisely, artists must have an adequate light source that helps them in distinguishing the color and highlighting details and won’t be hard on their eyes.
Natural daylight is one such setting where humans can see colors more accurately.
It has high contrast, low glare and results in less stress and reduced eye strain.
Daylight and magnifying lamps help in creating the same work setting by providing the perfect simulation light for increased clarity and color matching.
With their wide range of magnifiers, any artist can do detailed work at any time of day and night for a long time without straining their eyes.
Other lights such as tungsten, fluorescent, or halogen emit a reddish-yellow glow.
This glow does create a warm comfortable ambiance but the distortion created is stressful to the eyes, and can be disastrous for people working with color or doing detailed work.
Whereas, daylight floor lamps are very similar to natural daylight and retain most of their benefits.
What Type of Floor Lamp Ensures Eye Comfort in Art Studio?
Light temperature is another factor that depicts whether the lighting in the studio is comforting or stressful to the eyes.
The lamp’s light temperature often referred to as Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) is measured in Kelvin.
Natural light ranging between 4,900 to 6,500 K is the best solution for most types of work.
However, a nice white light of 5000K provides an increased level of brightness and improves overall attention is mostly used in art galleries.
As you might need different types of temperature settings that can complement the art pieces.
Check out this Kelvin chart to know about the different temperature settings.
What Design of Floor Lamp to Choose for an Art Studio?
1. Clip-on floor lamp – More suitable for a painting studio
When displaying a painting on the studio walls, light needs to be projected at them from certain directions and angles to properly highlight their shadows, hues, and depth.
Clip-on floor lamps can be easily adjusted to project the light in the desired angles.
2. Gooseneck/swing arm floor lamp – More suitable for drawing
Drawing is a very delicate process where an artist needs to constantly focus on minor intricacies and maintain the overall outlook of the drawing.
Gooseneck floor lamps have a flexible design that allows you to project light on the drawing from any angle.
This allows the artists to easily shift light directions and see how the drawing appears from different angles.
4 Best Floor Lamp For Art Studios and Artists
1. Great for Lighting up Easels – Verilux SmartLight Full Spectrum LED Modern Floor Lamp
The best light setting any studio can have is natural light without the harmful UV rays.
And the Verilux’s full-spectrum lamp can take you to the closest to that “perfect” lighting.
The Verilux Smartlight Floor Lamp is a modern and highly customizable lamp whose full-spectrum UV-free lighting can improve the visual clarity and color perception of any art studio.
This lamp has more than 15 different light settings (5 light intensity levels with 3 color temperature combinations) that allow you to set the perfect tone for any kind of artwork.
It has a sleek design and flexible gooseneck design that makes it a perfect choice for people who study or do detailed work for long hours (such as drawing).
2. Able to Cover Large Workbench – Daylight Company LLC UN1530 Daylight Art & Craft Floor Lamp
When it comes to drawing, every artist has his own way and place to draw.
While some prefer warm bright light, others a little dim – some prefer to stay at one place others are constantly moving from one room to another.
Daylight’s LLC UN1530 is an outstanding option for these bright wanderer artists.
This lightweight slim floor lamp produces a bright 2000 lumens bright light which is an ideal brightness setting for many drawing setups.
The floor lamp has 56 high-quality bright LEDs that provide accurate color matching and vividly bring out the natural hues.
The 4 brightness levels of the switch dimmer are handy for increasing the drawing’s illuminated surface.
The Daylight UN1530 floor lamp can be adjusted anywhere and its flexible neck allows you to easily adjust light angles.
3. Great for Painting Walls – Daylight U31375 Artist Studio Stand and Lamp
Artists who want to glorify the large paintings in their galleries would need a robust clip-on floor lamp with powerful lighting.
Luckily, the Daylight-U31375 studio stand has both these qualities and comes out as the ideal option for a painting studio with large paintings.
The 7’3″ tall sturdy tripod lamp is made of high-quality aluminum and has a reflective coating that allows the light to spread across a wider area.
It supports 4 clip-on lights that can be adjusted at different heights and angles to give that pristine look to your paintings.
4. Multi Use – Brightech Litespan 2 in 1 Floor and Desk Lamp for Artists
If you are looking for a multipurpose floor lamp that can fit anywhere nearby work desks, couches, or even bedrooms.
The Brightech Litespan 2 in 1 Floor & Desk Lamp is a great grab.
This floor lamp brings out the best of lighting and utility at a very cheap price.
The dimmable,full-spectrum light lamp features a 56” tall standing pole that can be adjusted down to 20 inches so that you can easily place the lamp on your desk or by your bedside.
Its high-contrast LEDs produces a bright light of 2000 lumens and has 3 different light color setting option.
This lamp’s modern design, flexible gooseneck, and cheap rate make it a really handy option for all budding artists.
How Do You Light up an Art Studio?
1. Drawing desks
To illuminate your working area you would need an adjustable swing arm floor lamp, make sure you select the right intensity and color temperature as you will be working long hours.
You can get some small size lamps that can be clipped onto the surface.
Otherwise, take a slim floor lamp that has an adjustable pole and flexible gooseneck.
2. Easel
For easels, you would need clip-on lamps, make sure you pick one that has an adjustable neck and keep the light angle at 45 degrees.
The easel lights should provide even illumination, should be easy to set up, and lightweight too.
3. Painting walls
For big painting walls, you would need robust and powerful floor lamps that support multiple clip-on lamps on them.
You would need a floor lamp that spreads the light across a wider area.
You can adjust the lamps at different heights to change the light angle and attract attention to different features.
4. Picture/artwork hanging
Hanging pictures usually need some light coming from a higher elevation.
Picture lights are typically used in gallery settings with a lot of visitors to ensure that in the rush no one bumps and breaks any lights.
They can be easily manipulated into different directions and give an open roof feel like the sun/moon are directly shining on the picture.
FAQs
1. Do LED lights damage paintings?
Ultraviolet rays are mainly responsible for fading any painting. As long as you use LEDs with no UV lights, the fabrics will be completely safe and artwork won’t fade.
Just keep the windows closed!
2. Do I need to buy a dimmable floor lamp for an art studio?
To preserve and bring out the best features of an artwork, the color temperature, and light intensity are needed to be adjusted.
Dimmable floor lamps come with multiple light settings that allow you to adjust the brightness and light temperature to exhibit the true colors of the picture.
Conclusion
Now that you know everything about the art studio lighting and floor lamps, you can measure your space, make your budget and start lighting up your gallery.
You can easily order all the above lamps from Amazon at great discounts. So take your pick and light it up!
