Saturday, February 4, 2012

SOLD-Blazing Light on Stock Island-6x6

SOLD
headed out to stock island last night to do this dock scene and then drove to key west and set up in front of a popular irish pub. 
i love painting in hard working harbors like the one on stock island. the piles of lobster traps, boat parts laying around, piles of bouys, and boats make interesting paintings day or night. the light at night is different to paint than daylight because the shadows dont all run in the same direction as they do in the day. you could have a light here, causing shadows to run in this direction (say left to right) and over here is a light pole way up high causing shadows straight down, not left to right. the light shapes also get darker and cooler as they run away from the light source.

 night painting really trains you to observe. you feel like youre just learning to see for the first time. i can see where this nocturnal series could enhance my daylight stuff by helping me to group objects by value better. also to edit out the un-necessary like you end up doing on the nocturnals because you cant see half the stuff out there at night.

2 comments:

Douglas Hoover said...

Mike, your night scenes always trip my trigger. You work the day scenes like nobody's business but when it comes to capturing the light at night... you got it going on!

Hope all is well with you!

We'll catch up soon.

~Doug

mike rooney studios said...

preesh doug! crawling around at night looking for a scene to paint, is a blast. except folks think i'm casing their neighborhood when i'm cruising thru looking around real slow LOL