Tiny sunset painting- "Day to Night"

I am heading out of town for a few days to be with family, so for now I submit a tiny painting I have just completed for an upcoming fundraiser for Art6 and ArtSpace Galleries here in Richmond, VA. The show is an annual event called  "Think Small 4" and it is always a fun event and has some really wonderful work for sale from artists in the area. This piece measures 3" high by 1.75" wide, so I thought I'd post it here to scale:

"Day to Night" Acrylic on Yupo Paper

Art opening tonight: "Luminosity"

I've been scrambling this week to get everything finished for the opening for my exhibit of new landscape paintings tonight here at the gallery, and I'm officially pooped. The good news is, the show looks great, andI can now take few hours to rest before we open up tonight. Come out and see us if you are coming downtown tonight or are doing the art walk. Here are the details for tonight's event:

"Luminosity" Art Exhibit at Jennifer Young Studio & Gallery

Richmond, VA's  Jennifer Young Studio & Gallery will feature new paintings of the luminous landscape by Jennifer Young.  The show opens on Friday October 5th, 2007, with a reception from 6 to 8:30PM. Opening night music provided by Russell Young. The exhibit continues through November 30th.   Jennifer Young Studio & Gallery is located at 16 East Main Street, two blocks east of the Jefferson Hotel. Click here to view a map and get directions from your location. For additional information please contact us!

One more sunset painting; Day's End, Hatteras

This painting was inspired by the recent trip I took to Cape Hatteras, located on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The first day we arrived at our cottage, it was quite overcast and gray.  After a 4 1/2 hour drive, we were a little disappointed, but we remained hopeful that the weather forcast would prove to be true and that a clearing would take place by nightfall. I'm happy to say that our hopes were realized. At dusk while we were preparing dinner, one of my friends called out to me, "Come look at this amazing sky!"  I ran out to the balcony to see a procession of dark billowing clouds parading across a magnificent sky that seemed to be painted with sweeping strokes of brilliant color. As we stood gazing at the spectacular view towards the sound, I noted how the backlit beach houses anchored the scene with their simple dark shapes. Here is my rendition of that evening scene:

"Day's End, Hatteras" Oil on Canvas, 24"x30" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young

Guest posting today

Today I'm posting about my Outer Banks paintings as a guest blogger over at the Queen of the Surf Pirates Blog. It's a fun and informative blog with the latest Outer Banks surfing info, beach news and more, courtesy of Paula Degatto and Sammy the Surf Dog from Nags Head in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Check it out, and thanks Paula for the invitation!

Blue Ridge mountains landscape painting: Lifting Fog II

Here is a painting in my "Southern Landscape" series that I've just completed. This painting shows an early morning Virginia scene of fog rising from the earth on a summer's day. I painted a smaller similar version of this scene some time ago and when I finished that one I knew I wanted to see it on a larger scale:

"Lifting Fog II" Oil on Canvas, 24x36" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young

I mentioned the other day that these last paintings I've been doing of early evening scenes are lessons in value comparisons. I can say the same for this early morning scene as well. The values are fairly close together in some cases and the value shifts are very subtle, so it can take some doing to differentiate one from another.

The main thing I do is just to compare, compare, compare. I will mix a big load of color on my palette and dab a bit on the area of canvas that I'm working on, compare that to the other surrounding values before I commit.

Color temperature (warm vs. cool color)  as well as color intensity are other elements that help describe atmospheric perspective in a painting, especially when the values are very close together.

So, for instance, if I want to push a part of the landscape back into the picture plane to add depth, I may cool this area down, gray it down, or use less contrast (or all 3), as I've done with the above lines of trees at varying distances.

By a similar notion, if I want to push a part of the landscape forward I may use more contrast, as well as warmer, more local colors as I did in the twilight painting from my previous post.  Of course, with a blazing sunset in the sky all of this gets a little tricky, but that is part of the fun!