The Long Twilight

There’s a little chill in the air to remind us that winter is coming. However there will be a period of changeover when, from one day to the next we can get summer or winter conditions. This seasonal transition is reflected in the individual days where daytime and night overlap in twilight. The most unusual sights are to be seen in the landscape at twilight, sometimes almost unbelievable and can be dangerous for the landscape artist. As I’ve said before, natural phenomena are unsettling in paintings. But not so in photographs, which as we all know, nowadays, can be as ‘creative’ as paintings. Very strange!!!

A limited palette as usual was used. Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Prussian Blue, plus Sap Green. As with the last painting I did not add any medium to the paint, just White Spirits to apply the paint in washes. I have been using this technique quite a bit lately. It allows great control of detailing, plus there are ‘accidental’ flows of paint, like with watercolours, can add interesting shapes.

Brushes used

The picture size is about 16″ x 22″. This is bigger than my usual size. The ‘solvent only’ technique is faster than the normal method. Nevertheless, I use larger brushes with larger paintings. This means I’m scaling up my working relationship between brush and area to be covered. This relationship is central to the working method. A bigger canvas with the same size brushes would need an adjustment in the working method.

I’m working on the video which is a few minutes longer than usual. A bigger painting takes more time to complete. See you soon.