Today I had a few minutes and my brushes were already oiled, paint tubes on the easel, so I used them to work on capturing the essence of sunlight.
Another thin layer of the yellow to add more to the backlit background.
The colors I used today:
- thyme lake (yellow)
- yellow sandstone
- greenish siltstone
The objective was to intensify the yellow in the sunlit background. A large part of the image I have in mind is only in my mind. I don’t have a photo to use for a reference on the lighting. I do have a photo to give me reference for the trees and fence with wooden fenceposts in the foreground, and a different photo reference for the owl itself. Basically, I’m trying to capture the essence of sunlight.
But the lighting is something I’ve witnessed but have never been able to capture in a photograph: It’s early morning, right after the sun has risen over the top of the distant mountain. The light looks as if the air is stained a transparent yellow. Beams of sunlight lighter than the surrounding air color breaks through the trees toward the viewer, casting brightness on anything facing that side. There’s a mist on the mountains at the midline that hovers over the ground in the middle-ground left.
I’m not sure it’s going to end up looking the way I imagine it, but as long as it looks believable (or beautiful enough to not matter), that’s all I’m worried about.
Here’s the before and after of todays yellow application:
There’s still a long ways to go. But if I keep the easel ready then I can take advantage of any little open span of time to do at least a little bit. So I’ll just keep adding to it as time allows. One step at a time, it’ll get to … somewhere.
At the end, we’ll see if it’s all I imagined it would be. Hopefully I’ll be successful at capturing the essence of sunlight. If so, I can use that in future paintings!
