Painting a nighttime picture is a challenging but rewarding project.
Painting art that depicts nighttime is a challenging undertaking. There are a number of painting techniques and strategies you will use to achieve the effects of evening hours. Night pictures are called nocturnes, a musical term for a composition inspired by the darkness of night. James McNeil Whistler painted many famous "moonlight paintings." Vincent Van Gogh also painted many scenes after nightfall, including the "Starry Night" series and compositions featuring Paris sidewalk cafes. Frederic Remington painted many nocturnal scenes of the American Old West.
Instructions
1. Select an interesting nighttime scene for the subject of your painting. Look for a view with lights reflecting the waters of a river or lake for interesting effects. Sketch the scene in the open air at night or photograph it for later reference. Use a long exposure and a tripod for the best results. Carry a battery powered light with you to illuminate your canvas.
2. Visit the scene of your painting during the daylight hours to draw your composition on paper. Closely observe the composotional elements you will arrange in your finished painting. Use your photographs and sketches to arrive at your final composition, then draw it out on the canvas.
3. Work directly on-site at the scene after sunset to directly capture the feeling of night. Try to convey a sense of the darkness of the landscape onto canvas. Use colors that are evocative of the night, with lots of violet, dark green and blue tones. Paint with cooler color tones to evoke the darkness and shadows of the night.
4. Study how light reflects off water and other surfaces to create visual interest. Try to reproduce the effects of muted lights and colors that you see at night. Use warm colors of yellow and orange to indicate light. Contrast the lighter tones of reflections and points of light against a dark background. Observe the light sources of the moon, stars and street lights and place your shadows accordingly.
5. Blend your colors and paint objects indistinctly to give a feeling of darkness to your picture. You don't have to use an overly dark palette of browns and blacks, use touches of richly colored hues to punch up your painting. Work from dark to light in nocturnal scenes to establish your structure of tonal values. Lay in your darker background colors in broad washes of color. Work progressively through the mid-tones of your value range. Paint in the accented highlights and sparkling reflections last of all, using your lightest colors. Finish the painting during the day, or in the studio, adding the finishing touches and fine detail work.
