Jazzy Sunset

I finally got into the pastels again yesterday at class! I was teaching how to paint the sunset and had this piece of peach colored paper at hand. It's an odd size, 9x15 1/2", but somehow it lent itself to the tall sky.

Sunsets are particularly fun to paint, I find. Here's a little bit about how to paint them from my sometime soon to be released book:

One thing that is significantly different about a sunset or sunrise is that the angle of the sun is below the clouds, rather than lighting them from above as in the daytime. This means that the bottoms of the clouds become light and colorful, while the tops are cast into shadow. This reverses the usual order of ‘warm on top, cool on the bottom’. Remember that clouds are composed of water droplets or ice crystals that tend to bounce the light around inside them, making them glow. Even in shadow, clouds will have some light within them, showing their volume.

Look for places where a hint of sky comes through the cloud, giving it a cool airy quality, as if it is somewhat insubstantial. These sky holes and sheer spots make your clouds appear to float in the sky, suggesting the billows caused by the wind. Use small touches of sky to move the viewer’s eye to your center of interest.

Why is the sky red at sunset? We know that sunlight contains all colors in the spectrum. The atmosphere around our earth scatters the light, usually resulting in the short-wavelength blue of daytime skies. In the evening the sunlight travels through much thicker atmosphere as the sun lowers on the horizon, allowing the longer wavelengths to be scattered by dust, smoke and other small particles in the air. The result is that first blue, green and yellow light are slowly filtered out, leaving orange and red. You will see the most spectacular sunsets during times when there are dust particles in the air, such as after a volcano has erupted, or when there are water droplets scattering the colors.The colors of the sky change accordingly, depending on the amount of daylight remaining and the location in relation to the orange-red of the setting sun. Color hangs in the sky in an arc around the setting sun, yellow nearest the sun, becoming progressively more green and blue, finally blending into the dark purple of oncoming night.

Here is your chance to use some long-neglected colors, brilliant orange or piercing magenta, colors you love but hardly ever pick up. You may enjoy using bright, out-of-the-tube colors that have been ignored in your palette. Lather the sky with neon green and drench the clouds in luminous yellow. Be adventurous. Mud might result, but only if you mix widely varied temperatures together too thoroughly or overmix complementary or tertiary colors. You can keep colors fresh by using strokes that remain somewhat unmixed, so that the colors and layers remain lively and vibrant. This does not mean that you should avoid using complementary colors. Rather the opposite—the deep blue and brilliant orange standing side by side may be what gives the scene pizzazz. It’s the contrast of fiery red and pale green, fragile yellow and rich purple that brings expression to your painting. Only be careful to retain the authority of each color, rather than over-blending them into a frowzy, run of the mill gray.

At sunset, when the dust of the day has scattered the light into a riot of colors, great contrasts might be seen, often incorporating deep darks where dense clouds have been formed by wind and moisture. Try using rich blues layered to create the impossible, deep green-blue-purple of a sunset sky, against which colors explode.

The setting sun often highlights the land, as well as the sky. Look for the colors of the sky cast onto the intervening landscape, as well as the shadows created by the light. You can use simple shapes to make a range of darkened mountains or an intervening line of trees, using dark greens and blues, or add a blush of dark pink, deep maroon or velvety gold to a field in front of dark hills.

Take a few chances as you paint the sunrise or sunset. Often the clichéd sunset painting disappoints because the artist fails to try new things. Experiment with a different kind of paper. Try making your own surface. Paint on an outrageous color or on black paper. Turn the painting upside down and look at it as a series of shapes and colors. Reverse the colors, painting in complements first, then revert to the natural colors—just to see if it makes your color more exciting. Paint a series of pieces from the same photograph or color sketch on several different colored backgrounds, to see how the ground color affects the painting. Have some fun. Take some risks. Try a few new things. Push yourself a little and get out of the comfortable rut that results in a formula painting.