Paint Dance: "Foggy Afternoon, Somes Sound". 14x11, oil on canvas

Monday, August 08, 2011

"Foggy Afternoon, Somes Sound". 14x11, oil on canvas

"Foggy Afternoon, Somes Sound". 14x11, oil on canvas

I wanted to work some more on the effects of fog/mist, so I used the photo below for my study.

I was pretty frustrated with the painting, as I could not really get the effect I was trying to achieve. Eventually it dawned on me that the painting needed warmth. It's funny, when I think of the "color" of fog, I tend to think gray. But gray can be warm or cool and I was thinking cool and putting too many blues into it. Then I began thinking about how fog and mist are created and I realized that it made complete sense to consider fog warm in temperature, since it results and much more particles in the atmosphere than on a clear day.

Typically, I know to warm up my sky as it gets closer to the horizon line, as that is where there are more particles in the atmosphere. Funny how you forget things. I actually did a couple fog paintings before, and pretty much achieved a successful rendition of the atmosphere, but I had to struggle with this one, before I figured out what was wrong with it. I know now that the next fog painting that I do I'll remember to use burnt sienna, or a cold red, for the overall light temperature, instead of blue!

The photo above was taken on the fishing pier of the Claremont Hotel in Southwest Harbor. The weather changes very quickly up there and the results make for some very dramatic effects in the sky and surrounding scenery. The second night of our visit, we had dinner in the hotel's lovely dining room, and as we ate, a sudden storm came through. It was over in all of five minutes, leaving a cloudy sky with the boats lit up from the setting sun. Here's the view that we had from our window: