Moon over condo and amber lamp with flies

Heading out late to make a few paintings on a nice cool evening, I found a few scenes just across the street, this one looking back over our condo with the moon overhead. Its almost but not quite full... tomorrow will be the official full moon, well today (Friday) night. To compose the scene I included the pole with bike sign in the foreground... it was reflecting the red light from the huge Metro sign on the front of the grocery store (which is behind me). It took awhile to build up the scene, someone stopped by and asked what I was painting and said cool idea, good luck. They must have been an artist since only an artist would appreciate the need for luck in a painting. 

Moon over condo bike sign, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

The front of the grocery store has several bright LED lights that appear white, almost greenish, while the side has a strong amber floodlight overhead that bathes the parking lot, shrubs, and house in an orange-yellow tint. I had to use a different colour scheme for the left and right sides of the painting... mostly variations of grey, black and white on the left, with variations of orange, olive and brown on the right. The flood light is at the top middle, it had a cloud of insects in front of it, like little stars swirling around in the inky purple sky. Since there is no white paint in watercolour, the white lights you see, and any light highlight including the flies, are mostly the paper showing through, with some orange tint for the flies. 

White light amber light, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025

To better capture the cloud of flies I did one last painting, this time a close up, and using a different technique. Here, I applied the orange tint first, in a cone shape emanating from the lamp, let it dry while I worked on the last three letters of the sign (Metro), and then over-painted the purple sky leaving little open areas for the flies. I left a few flies totally white for extra pop. It resulted in a more accurate depiction of the fly effect as compared to the previous painting. It seemed impossible to paint a cloud of flies at night near an amber flood light until now. 

Cloud of flies amber light, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025