New Painting: Twilight Over The Fairgrounds

As we leave February behind us, two things strike me about this month: the lack of snow and the abnormally warm temperatures. To my recollection, we had no measurable snowfall in February and it feels like the temperatures have been hovering around the low 30’s for the whole month, rarely below the 20’s over night. It’s been a weird month weather-wise.

However, we’ve had a number of beautiful sunrises and sunsets throughout not just February but also January. Every now and then either myself or my wife have been able to take a photo of one and some of them just seem to scream “paint me, paint me” when I look at them.

So I did. I’m excited to be able to share my latest painting, Twilight Over The Fairgrounds, based on a photo taken on my way to the grocery store one evening.

This view appeals to me for a number of reasons. At the right time of the year, there’s a blanket of snow covering the large fields around the Fairgrounds, while the whole sky is a wide open canvas for nature to paint its picture. It’s one of those views that brings a smile to my face and just provides a sense of warmth even on the coldest of days.

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The Painting Process

With this painting, I decided to try something new. I’ve dabbled with black paper over the last few months so I’ve seen the benefit a solid background color other than white can provide. I’ve also observed other artists use underpainting, a process where one color is painted over the white to provide a foundational layer for the painting. A warm color can provide a warm tone to the whole painting, for example. Oranges, browns and yellows are common colors I see used for this purpose.

Since this painting is based on a sunset, it felt like the whole painting could benefit from a solid yellow underpainting. The immediate problem with this approach is that gouache, the type of paint that I use, reactivates with water. So, if I painted the whole paper yellow and then tried to add blue on top, it’s likely I’d end up with a green mess on my hands (blue + yellow = green).

To solve this problem, I decided to try acrylic gouache. With a similar matte texture when dry, it looks like regular gouache with the added benefit of not reactivating with water.

So, after adding masking tape, I painted the whole paper yellow, then waited a day for it all to dry properly before actually tackling the painting itself.

Then, I dove into the actual painting itself, starting with the clouds. I wanted the clouds to be fairly dark to provide a clear contrast to the sunset, while at the same time not making it all a dark, grey blob.

From there, I added the snow-covered fields in the foreground and started working on the middle part of the painting, which barn, the trees and other small details. In the end, the underpainting served the purpose I had hoped it would, lending a warmer feel to the whole painting and bleeding through here. I expect I’ll try this again in the future with other paintings.