Original Watercolor Painting, “Plein Air, 5:15-6pm, Alki, 2.2.23, Thursday”, watercolor, 30 x 42”, 2023

This remains one of my favorite works at this scale, 30 x 42 inches.  I made this painting unplanned, on my way to another engagement, but the sky was intriguing, so I either missed my appointment or was late, I don’t recall.  I’d already tried several times to accurately paint the colors of this kind of atmosphere at this time of day - overcast, dusk, before sunset but after the sun had set behind low cloud cover.  I enjoyed seeing the deep red of the foreground, the refection of the dark clouds on the water, and the peach and cerulean (sky) blue colors of the sky mixing on the calm water’s surface to create a greenish glow.  This piece is very rare for my practice in that I did some touchup work in the studio the next morning - I deepened the dark of the landform of Bainbridge Island, as well as added a few more dark strokes to the foreground waves.  When I’d been working on it the previous evening, I had been working until after dark, and couldn’t really assess accurately some of the tones.  In the morning light, it was obvious that the silhouette of the far shore had dried a bit lighter than expected, so another wash was needed.