Sunset in Ronda, Spain

Capturing a sunset is always hard to do, especially when the sun is just below the horizon and darkness is looming. But the colours are so spectacular at this time, as you can see from this painting done in Ronda Spain. I was sitting in a little park situated right on the edge of a steep cliff and wide valley. The sunset had been truly grand, in fact I think I did another painting about 30 minutes before this one, I'll have to post that one soon.

The tricky part about sunsets is that the paint dries really slow, because the sun is down and the temperature drops. In this painting, I had to paint the sunset first, let it dry completely, and then put the dark fence and trees on top. It really helped that Granada was about 35C and the air bone dry, causing the paint to still dry fast at sunset. When you are mixing the colours in a sunset scene, remember to tint everything with a deep-red orange tone....even the blues greys and darker tones in this painting are tinted with some salmon-pink to reflect the colour of the sky.

5x7" cold press, 1998