Nocturne - LaRoque Gageac

A Step-by-Step Watercolor Demonstration

Nocturne - LaRoque Gageac 12 x 16” Watercolor © John Hulsey

Sometimes when we are traveling, we see things that we are moved to paint, but for one good reason or another cannot. My reference image for this painting was taken at night from an overlook high above the Dordogne River in France. We were staying in the little village of Domme, perched on the edge of a cliff carved out by the river. As night began to fall, I was struck by the fading dusky light in the sky, the lights of the village of LaRoque Gageac and the deep tones in the landscape below. I especially liked the combination of colors, but knew that there was no time to create a watercolor en plein air before it all went dark. I set my camera on a tripod and made four or five bracketed exposures, just to be sure. This is always a good idea, because the image in the little LCD screen on the back of most cameras doesn’t display the image you are actually taking. It is a case of What-You-See-Is-Not-Necessarily-Wh…