New Work: Summer Sunset, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

Summer Sunset, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

The plan was to paint this sunset in an uncommon way, forget the realist aspects and use colors as I wished. It seemed easy enough and the painting did come together quickly, but I wasn't quite satisfied after I had declared it finished.

As it turned out, this oil was 'finished' two more times. I was a bit too timid the second time, so lesson learned, the third attempt began with colors pushed further and additional attention given to the edges everywhere. Last, I added more subtleties to the dark foreground and that small amount of tweaking created a surprising amount of depth.

Finally, the painting hit the mark with the high-contrasts at the bottom giving way to the paler atmosphere at the top. The effect sets up the horizontal bands with their various colors nicely...it almost sings at times.