Orange Sun over Auto Shop

 

To capture my impression of the sun on a smoky day, I first saturated the sky with water, leaving a dry sphere where the sun would go. I then applied mixtures of orange (PO36), blue (PB16) and a halo of orange-yellow (PY110) to the wet sky. As it dried, I outlined the autoshop elements, the details on the apartment building, and eventually the trees as the sky slowly dried. After filling in all the colours, which were tinted with yellow-orange, I carefully mixed a red-orange with pyrol red (PR254), benzi orange (PO36), and yellow orange (PY110) until it was the correct shade. I was wearing polarizing sun glasses and only glancing briefly at the sun to gauge its colour through the thick smoky air. In reality it was obviously much brighter than it appears in the painting, brighter than the surrounding sky, but I decided to represent the sun with that brilliant orange. As you can see at the bottom left the auto shop is heavily with orange to keep it interesting. As I throw around the word impression and orange sun, of course I am thinking of Monet's famous painting called Impression, Sunrise, which is credited as the painting that started impressionism. Taking a quick peek at Monet's painting and I see the same shade of orange so I guess I am doing something right!

Orange Sun over Auto Shop, watercolour 7 x 10" cold press, June 2023 (No. 3635)