Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Work in Progress: Last Light

After painting the the estuary and fog scenes with a muted cool palette, I was itching to splash some warm, saturated colors on paper, and a sunset is always enticing to paint... Think about all the bright reds, oranges and golden hues! The inspiration of this painting comes from a business trip several years ago when I was working as an application scientist (glorified term for after-sale customer support engineer...) in upstate Maine. I remember it was the last evening I stayed there, on the way to the hotel, after a three-day snow storm, the sun finally broke through thick clouds, and back-lighting all the pine and fir woods along the road... Some dead reeds across the snow field were glowing in the setting sun as if they were lid by fire. It was such a breath-taking moment... I pulled over the country road and snapped as many photos as I could while the sun is sinking fast toward the horizon.


Last Light, Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 5"h x 6"w, WIP 1

Since this is a very small painting (I may do a larger version of it after trying out the composition on this scale), I tried to keep the background woods very simple, just using upright strokes of dark and light colors to hint the trees gradually receding into distance. I have used strong dark cool colors -- blues, greens and purples mingled together for the foreground shadows, and charged thick pigments of reddish-orange for the reed heads reflecting the setting sun. I am not sure about how I should deal with the middle-ground snow field. I'd like to keep it light to indicate sun-lid snow, but I'd also want to integrate it into the dark shapes of foreground and background. Some carefully pondering...

2 comments:

  1. Must have been a breathtaking sight! The painting is stunning already..wonder what you will come up with ? :-))

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are tackling a tough subject in my opinion. You have beautiful colors and washes in all of your landscapes. Beautiful work!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking time visiting and commenting on my blog! Your feedback and encouragements are things that keep me going with I am feeling down or frustrated... I will try my best to reply to every comment ASAP but sometimes life gets in the way and I am a bit slow in my response. I would like to apologize if that happens...

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