This one was very fun! I had a chance to climb a fire-watch tower and paint from the top, buffeted by wind.
I started painting an hour before sunset, so I knew I had to move quickly. I spent too much time on an underlying pencil sketch though; this is a repeated mistake of mine, so in the future I plan to leave my pencil at home so that I’m not using it as a crutch.
Midway through painting, Golden Hour suddenly hit. Cons: All my shadows and colors shifted very quickly, and my final painting turned out as a strange mashup of two very different times of day. Pros: The light from that viewpoint at that moment was so beautiful I nearly cried.
Some things I’d do differently if I got a chance at this scene again:
- Skip the pencil sketch, block out shapes with an underpainting instead
- Blend edges so that highlights look less like polka-dots
- Be prepared for drastically changing light conditions at certain times of day (e.g. Golden Hour)
Just because of my vantage point, this was probably my most entertaining plein-air painting to-date. But I do think the final product suffered from the distraction of changing light and shadows, and hiding from the wind. I hope I’ll get another chance at this one soon! Extremely fun location.
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