My new 90+cri studio lights that actually make red look good. I highly recommend good lighting for those of you who make art. This was around $60 or so in materials to put together. There are fancier options, but this will get me through until tariffs go away.

I had to get the adjustable ones, because I couldn’t find 4000k lights like this. Nice to have the option to change it, I guess, but higher is too cool, lower is too warm. The high color rendering really does make quite a difference… more than I expected it would. Cadmium red glows like it’s lit from within. I think I might have spent a good portion of 2024 ruining (and then only partially recovering) a painting that only bothered be because of how the reds looked under my old lights. I won’t do that, again!

The bulbs were $20, I bought 2 clamp lights for $10 each… I already had the other 2 in the studio…. and the wood was scrap from making stretchers/frames. The fancy high cri shop light I found online was $150. Maybe when tariffs go away… I’d still need 2 of these lights with that to have the same level of illumination. There would probably be less in the way of cast shadows from a 4′ long strip, though.