Light is the Subject

One of my interests in painting is the interaction of light--natural or otherwise--with the tangible world. That is, what happens when light bounces, bends, transmits, and so on? How does a glass object look in differing lighting? What happens to the light of day as the sun traverses? 

Hoff, "Tryptich (Morning Afternoon Evening)," oil on panels mounted on board

In "Tryptich" for example there are three 5x7 oil studies of a bottle about half full of clear liquid. Despite the simplicity of the subject, the changing light provided the chance to study light intensely. Each panel was done at a particular time of day, and the light painted as it appeared to my eyes. 

In the far left painting the outdoor light is cool (blues) and reflects the bright indirect light of the sky. In the center work the light of early afternoon is now direct, warm (yellows), and quite bright, seeming to flow into the liquid and ricochet from the near-bottom of the bottle. In the right panel the bottle is at twilight so that the light again now indirect, dimmer, cooler (blues, greys, grey-pinks), and transmitted (not reflected) through the glass and liquid so that we see the dark bands of the window sill. 

There are quite a lot of differences among these three little works, owing to the always changing light. I enjoy returning to study them even now, more than a decade after they were made.