Learning from Caravaggio

Caravaggio was the master in using light and shadows in his portraits and paintings.

At the academy we worked several lessons on this clair-obscur theme.

First from a statue with a large spot posted on the left side:

Then a second lesson on the same subject but with different result:

And then with a model, he was put in the light and we were working in semi-dark settings.

Starting from the dark/black and then putting more whites into place... 

it wasn't easy, but hey Caravaggio is a master and must have practised and been drawing a lot to come to his masterpieces. You can find more on his work here.