Where would we be without the light? We need light to paint, and more importantly, to live. We can think about light as photons and waves or consider light as it relates to our health and spirituality. The visible light that reaches the eye-brain is responsible for our sight.
To represent on canvas what is before the artist, one must observe the play of light upon a subject and translate that onto the picture plane. How we learn to do this is by studying how the Old Masters and Impressionists used the elements of light to create images.

The Old Masters used these five elements of light to model their images.

Adding to the classical model, the Impressionists were freer to explore the play of light on their subject through color. They focused on 2 other elements of light: Transparent Light and Translucent Light.

From my perspective as an Impressionist painter of today, there is another element of light needed– an 8th element I call the Transcendent Light. It is an ethereal light expressed through the artist to the view – a beauty a truth.