Sunshine and Shadow: Postcard No 87

By lindywhitton on September 28, 2024

Life by the River

I do love a sunshine and shadow contrast scene. It's the drama of all that light playing against deep, rich darks.

There are a few places nearby where everything comes together on the riverbank to create some wonderful shadows. Where the trees overhang the river and there are reeds and long grasses it's always fertile shadow chasing ground.

This was a fun little exercise in sunshine and shadows . The lucious dark blues and purples in the water set up a lovely vibration against the orange and yellows of the reeds.

I choose a light aqua for the sky and far water as a cooler blue to push the background into the distance. It helps to bring some depth to the painting.

A good mix of warmer and cooler yellows and golds make for some movement and temperature contrast in the foreground.

As often happens I changed the local colour a fair bit to suit my own vision for the scene. One of the things that helps me let go of local colour is using a single set of pastels rather than my open stock.

For this one I lived it up a bit and used two sets. Unison Landscape set of 76 and Liz Haywood Sullivan Terry Ludwig landscape set of 30.

Using a curated set has the advantage of lending harmony to a painting because all the colours have been chosen because they belong together.