Nocturne Notes
Phil Starke
Evening Journey 20 x 24″ Oil © Phil Starke
In our fascination with how the eye sees, and translates the world around us to our brains, we have found it particularly interesting to study how the eye sees at night. Search for the words “Nocturnes” and “Vision” in the search bar to read many interesting articles about the science of seeing at night and the art of painting at night, or, download our book, Nocturnes – A Primer on Night Painting.
We’ve asked some of our favorite artists to show us examples of their Nocturne work and to tell us a little bit about their processes. We are starting with Phil Starke – https://philstarkestudio.com, a consummate artist and educator. He sent us the image above and wrote to us about painting at night:
“When I paint outside, I use a couple of clamp lights, one on the palette and one on the canvas. My palette is Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Pthalo Blue and Ultramarine Blue. Moonlight is a cool bluish-green or blue-violet and the shadows are warmer, more of a muted, dark burnt sienna.
My paintings outside at night are small simple color studies to get an idea of the values and color. The studio paintings are composed from sketches and photos with the same palette.
Night paintings are pretty much value paintings with cool light and warm shadows.”
Read more about Phil Starke in our “Voices of Experience” article from 2011.
Copyright Hulsey Trusty Designs, L.L.C. (except where noted). All rights reserved.
