Thursday, July 21, 2011

Night Sky Outside of Town


This is the first real nocturne painting I've ever created, aside from a few experiments many years ago. I think it turned out well, though it is very difficult ot get accurate photos of nocturnes - I either end up with ambient light reflecting off the paint, a shadow cast from myself on the painting, or there's not enough light and the photo becomes blurry.

The sky color was a real challenge here: I settled upon a mix primarily of Cerulean Blue and Raw Umber, and then a small amount of Titanium White was added (for opacity) with a tinge of Ultramarine Blue (to shift the color back towards blue since Cerulean Blue has very low tinting strength.) Note that no black was used in the sky since it muddied up the colors.

Acrylic Painting: 14" x 17"