The Secret to Painting Sunshine

'Fall Fantasy'              5x7            pastel            ©Karen Margulis
available $50

My infatuation with red trees continues this week. Painting red trees always reminds me of the idea that objects under warm light will have cool shadows. Yesterday's blog post addressed the way to create a red tree with a warm glow. Yesterday's post about painting warm sunlight

We focused on this idea in this week's pastel class. I shared a few more tips for painting the illusion of warm sunlit trees. Here are a couple of those tips:

• When painting a landscape it is important to know what time of day and what weather conditions you wish to portray. Warm light occurs in early morning and late afternoon (sun is low in sky) Cool light occurs mid day and overcast conditions.

• The idea that warm light = cool shadows means that if the light source is warm the shadowed areas will be cool (not just the cast shadows on the ground....but any area not lit by the sun)

• The secret to painting warm sunlight is to use a warm color in the areas KISSED BY THE SUN and use a cooler/duller color in the areas not kissed by the sun.

My display for this week's class