Auto shop at night with cloud

 

The trusty auto shop, always across the street waiting to be painted. This time, there was an eerie pink cloud in the dark blue sky, and the strong artificial lights illuminated the parked cars. Since there is no white paint in watercolour, one has to imagine where all the white highlights are and make sure to leave them open. The artificial lights were easy enough, they are just rectangles, but the reflected highlights on the cars were a bit trickier, I used side brush drag to create a sparkle effect. The whole painting will look terrible until the last brush strokes are filled in, then the night illusion will appear. Getting the shadow correct under the car is important to give a realistic sense, there is usually a strip of light, then a dark shadow under the car. It was moister than I though, you see how my initials bled into the background, and also a drop of water came down from the balcony overhead since it had rained about an hour ago.

Auto shop at night with cloud, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, October 2024