The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Night Painting in
Rocky Mountain National Park
Perspectives No. 36


Moon Walk               Pastel              John Hulsey

   We’ve been answering mail lately from artists interested in joining a workshop in Rocky Mountain National Park, and there are a number of folks who are  interested in trying a little painting at night. This excerpt from our article, Painting in Rocky Mountain National Park from The Artist’s Road should give you the flavor of the experience and a solid idea of what you might expect.

   I had been out working in the waxing moonlight for the last couple of nights, but this night it would be full. We decided to take a drive up to Bear Lake at midnight to see if we couldn't paint a pastel and take some photographs of the moon reflected in the water. Outside of the park campgrounds, there is almost no one up and about in the park at night, so we had the whole place to ourselves.

   It felt like we had our own private park for the night, and in my view, it is just one of the many benefits that the artist residency affords the artist. It is an eerie sensation to be walking around on a trail at night, perfectly able to see and navigate, but strangely, delightfully alone, save for whatever nocturnal wildlife might be around. We walked the path to the north side of the lake while we kidded each other about the hungry mountain lions that surely must be near. The aerial perspective of receding mountain peaks bathed in the clear, blue moonlight contrasted perfectly with the deep, inky shadows of the forest surrounding the lake. We set up our pastel gear and began a small painting working with broad strokes of blues and blacks contrasted with the cool whites of the moonlight and its reflection. In order to paint  at night, I have to keep in mind the necessity of making accurate color judgements based on what I actually see, rather than what I think I see.  Nighttime lighting is so very different than daytime that it takes some experience painting it to get any understanding of how the daytime colors of even a familiar landscape are radically altered by moonlight. First of all, the value range is restricted to a very low-key range, almost always composed of deep grey-blues. Then, we notice that unlike daytime, we have a dense dark, which appears to be black. There is the bright moon, which when full, can be very near white. Objects lose all their details and dissolve into broad shapes and silhouettes of subtley-modulated darks. This is really where the camera can be of little assistance to the painter. In order to make a nighttime painting have depth, color and life, we must be able to develop interesting, powerful shapes and put into those shapes all the wonderful subtle shifts in color. This means expanding the darks of our limited low-key value range out like an accordion to approximate the same width of tone we can find during the day.

   If you would like to join us for a painting workshop (and perhaps some nighttime painting, too) in Rocky Mountain National Park in the future, be sure to contact us. 
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