Which Blue Pastels for a Night Sky?

'Listen to the Night Sounds'            16x20         pastel            ©Karen Margulis
available in my Etsy shop  $375

Do you have the right blue pastels to paint a night sky? I loved painting these Queen Anne's Lace under a night sky because it allowed me to use my set of blue Terrages by Diane Townsend. I also needed to supplement with some of my go to Terry Ludwig blues. You don't need to have these exact pastels to paint an effective night sky but you do need blue pastels that are the right value and intensity. We need those rich deep dark blues. NOW is the time to use them.

A common occurrence when painting a landscape with a blue daytime sky is that we sometimes paint the sky too dark for the time of day. When we reach for and use those rich dark blues our sky doesn't fit with the light we have on the ground. It looks like we have two different paintings....night sky what a sunny daytime ground.

It is easy to do this because often the reference photos we use over saturate and over polarize  the blue sky. It looks deep dark blue!  And in some parts of the world the sky IS deep dark blue in daytime. But when we reach for the dark blue pastels the sky looks too dark!  The answer is to use those darks but be sure to modify them by layering lighter value blues on top. Save those rich dark blues for the evening sky!

A few of the rich blues I used including Terry Ludwigs and Dine Townsend Terrages

I had a great time recreating this painting for my Silver level patrons. You can see a step by step demo later this month on my Patreon Page www.patreon.com/karenmargulis
I will be sharing more about the original sometime in November!