Let me preface this blog with a disclaimer. I am a plein air painter but not a nocturne plein air painter. Nocturne paintings are night time scenes. I have enough technical difficulties with daytime plein air painting. I do not want to tackle the night time challenges and I am more concerned about safety in the night. Add snow and cold weather and forget it!

 

The painting above (Silent Night) is a soft pastel studio painting done from a daytime photograph of a scene at the Morton Arboretum. This was an experiment based on an article written by Michael Chesley Johnson, James Gurney's book "Color and Light," a couple of YouTube videos. I will let you judge the success of it.

 

This is considered shooting "day for night." I used a photo I took during the day at the Morton Arboretum for my reference.

 

 

I do not have the software or great computer skills so my manipulation of the original photograph was minimal. I had to rely mostly on principles. I knew that the value (light vs. dark) would have to be quite dark and the value range narrow. In other words it had to be low key. Details would have to be minimized and my colors would have to be cooler. Reflective surfaces like water would have the lightest value but snow was problematic for me. I tried to keep the snow the lightest where I thought moonlight would shine on it. I kept to one natural light source, the moon, to keep it simple.

 

 

I started drawing in the major shapes with a light pastel pencil on a black sanded paper.

 

 

I knew I would stay in the dark and cool colors in my pastel box, the section on the right and to the bottom.

 

 

I started laying in pastel in the major shapes. You can see here the problem I had with the final painting and why I had to take it back to the easel. I had the right values but too many relatively warm colors. When I photographed the final painting I could see this clearly and had to go back and make major adjustments. It is best to think of your painting as monochromatic. That means you should use the same color but different values.

 

If you try this, you will be very surprised how dark your lights truly are. The moonlight and reflection is a very dark pastel. I would not recommend using photos taken at night. The dark areas will look just black. However, do make night time observations and take notes.

 

 

These paintings are very interesting, peaceful, and even mysterious. So, I hope you give this a try. I know I will do this again.

 

Sue and Suzy, the artist with a split personality