Painting at night on location is rather difficult, one needs to understand where their paints are because they can all look the same on the palette! In this painting, the scene, my paper, and my palette were all illuminated with a strong amber light from the Metro grocery store. In the parking lot they have these flower boxes full of sunflowers and marigolds. In the background was a street lamp and an apartment building. The appearance of this painting was quite different when I was doing it, there was no blue visible in the sky, and the greens all looked olive or even brownish. The yellows also seemed to be more yellow. Next time I will attempt to counter this by controlling the amount of blue in the mixes and tempering the green. I basically have to paint with the brain not the eyes.
Sunflowers and Marigolds at Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2021 (No. 2796)
This painting was done under a strong white light, a powerful LED also part of the metro but along the front. I am looking across the street at the pharmacy. Under this lighting I could better match the colours. To get the sky to be inky black, I mixed indo blue, magenta, some perylene maroon, and black. Probably just the indo blue and black would have done the job, but I wanted it to really dry black. The moon was full or close to full, and clouds were creating interesting shadow effects. The building in the front had five light sources, one the green sign, two the yellow sign, three the front doors, four the moonlight, and five the light from the Metro that was illuminating my painting efforts. I like how I got a few stars into the sky, although it was mostly accident, next time I will try to make the star effects with more intention. By the way, painting at night really makes a mess of the palette I may need to set up one just for this purpose.
Pharmacy at Night, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2021 (No. 2797)
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