I'm usually a daylight painter. Mostly because I haven't arranged to get out and paint at night. We've had so much rain, recently, and I've had this idea for over a year that I'd like to try painting downtown Austin. Just looks like a lot of fun whenever I've seen wet nights treated by some of my friends and favorite painters. So, I drove into town hoping to catch the evening light and wet streets.
I discovered that controlling values was imperative to pull off the effect I was after. This was finished in the studio as I tried to get things into balance. I like the mysterious quality of the dark shapes played against the effects of direct and reflected light. There's also a kind of romantic feeling that moves my sense of interpretation. Interpretation is what fascinates me in painting. The desire to pull something out that has little to do with description, but a lot to do with the design and paint handling.
Oddly enough, this night time painting experience is teaching me what I should be doing with daytime subjects. It's more difficult to make the shift to painter's vision in the daytime, because it's so easy to get caught painting things and details. You can't see so much detail at night, so you have to work with the shapes, and forego seeing exactly what's what. Suggestion and interpretation are far more fun than description.
A MISTY MONDAY'S EVE
©Jimmy Longacre 2015
16X20 oil on canvas panel
Jimmy Longacre
subjective realist landscape paintings
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