Huntington Gardens San Marino – November Dawn – Karen Winters Daily Painting
November Dawn (Scott Gallery -Huntington Gardens) 12 x 16 oil on canvas
This studio painting depicting dawn in the Shakespeare Garden is based on plein sketches and photos I’ve taken at the Huntington. In fact, I’ve never been there at dawn, but I’ve taken some liberties with a noon photo (below) to imagine how it must look at the peak of fall bloom.
Changing the time of day and angle of the sun was a real exercise in thinking about color, shadows and so on because I had no reference to rely on. I remembered that white marble often glows pink in the morning, but there are touches of warm, too. To break up the wide expanse of the wall I invented shadows, but then I had to think about what color they would be. The same is true of the shadows of the side of the building – where would they cast shadows? The sky is different at dawn. Darker at the top than at the horizon (as usual) but it is warmer in the direction of the sun. So those colors needed to be softly blended to suggest the right atmosphere for that time of day.
I find this kind of exercise a lot of fun because it helps me to break out of painting that is just copying. This can be useful for plein air painting, too. For example, if you are a distance from your subject and you know there’s a shadow there but you can’t see it, you can use imagination and logic to decide what color to paint it.
Kate (Cathy) Johnson
November 14, 2007
It’s a tour de force, girl…wonderful!
Dee
November 15, 2007
Very nice painting. You captured and highlighted the lights and darks so much more than the photo showed. I really like the shadows that you added to the building. You’re right, this is a great exercise in training the artist eye to see what would be, should be. Great job.
Lynn
November 15, 2007
Karen, that’s absolutely stunning. The building glows beautifully.
Linda
November 15, 2007
Great! You got the right angle on your shadows, too — at least it feels like you did. This is really beautiful
susan hosken
November 15, 2007
It’s always great to see your lovely work.
Lots of love from susan in Australia
Sherie
December 23, 2009
I learn so much from reading your posts.
This is beautiful!