Today I was finally able to move away from my fixation on the head on the left and start digging into the rest of the composition; it feels great! The bottom image is what I had at the beginning of the day and the one on top is where I ended.

When I was working on the drawing for the head of the salter (the one I did using three mirrors and myself as the model) I had an amazing experience: I was just looking in the mirror, studying the way the light fell on my head and figure, when I put my hand up to approximate where the light would fall on the second figure (the one tasting the soup). I wanted to see how much shadow the first figure would cast and get some idea of the way the light would move on the second figure. As I moved my hand in and out of the cast shadow I had a sudden vision of the space in my studio as a volume of light. I saw the room of light as if it were a block of transparent, luminous marble and I saw that composing my painting was like carving a block of light.

I've pondered this way of seeing for a few days now. I didn't write about it earlier because it wasn't relevent to my struggles with the head. I usually rely heavily on rhythm for composition; I use the light to illustrate the rhythm, to organize the painting and for dramatic effect (to see my other figure compositions, click on Elizabeth Torak Web Site in the links and look for "The Fates", "The French Fry Eaters", "The Maenads" and "The Beat Goes On") Though I've always loved form and depth and would be the first to tell you that light gives a sense of form, I've never experienced the sculptural power of light until now, never felt it kick me in the gut before. I'm quite curious to see how this changes my work.