'Twilight' series

Curiosity

Can I capture twilight color & value? 

(presented in reverse timeline)

'The Lineup' 

the city is under the fog

'under the fog'

Richard's photo captures the hues!*

doesn't look real...

...but it is

material testing

twilight fog

after the glow

Procreate touch up 'on w.c.'

Procreate touch up 

moved from book to w.c. paper

'research'

Can I paint this?

Can I paint this? 

The living room windows face west. We eat our meals at a small table looking out to the San Francisco Bay, and the peninsular 'The City' is built upon. 

(Commentary)

We watched the SalesForce Tower being built. We see its beacon, unfortunately, visible from everywhere, including the return trip from the Farallons, rising higher than the SF hills. 

The sky has had some extraordinary color. I wanted to do sketches, capturing the sequence from after sunset: twilight, civil dusk before nautical dusk. To photographers, the blue hour, lasts about 20 minutes. With 'gesture drawing' twilight in watercolor, I maybe had less than 5 minutes before the sky changed color.

Twilight Zone

I did some research to know what twilight is, when to sit at the table and paint, and set up what I need to paint. It took one evening to figure out working in a watercolor book wouldn’t work! Too wet to turn pages quickly to capture multiple images.

Next night I used previously cut sheets I was making into a book but never sewed together. So, at least I could let the page dry when I started another. 

That worked, but why work so small? So I moved up to quarter sheets taped to the board, with taped borders too. Now a piece is more than a study, going towards a sketch. This is a bit of a breakthrough for me. Using more paper, more paint!

But then the paper started buckling! I recall in the old days stretching paper. It’s a long story. 

Enjoyed the process, and got some fun paintings out of it.

Next, I’m pursuing acrylic painting.

* Volcanoes Turn Twilights Purple - Sky & Telesco