Plein Air Series, After Hours

 "Stonington Nocturne" 12" x 10"

  Nocturnes are interesting to paint. Often it's really difficult to see what color is there on the pallette and the surface you are painting on. For this painting, I was standing under a streetlight near the top of the hill looking down over the layers of houses and over the harbor during a full moon evening. Although the values, which are very low key, are close to what I was looking for, the color was very hard to see. Each pile of oil paint looked like a dark bluegrey (except for the white and yellow) and the mixtures all looked similar. I could only mix color because I always have the paint from the tube in the same place on the pallette so I could tell which was a red pile and which was blue and so on. Its a chance to see a scene in a completely different way, and that's always a good thing!