Nocturne Notes

Dan Mondloch

Campfire Time 11 x 15” Watercolor © Don Mondloch

In an interview with The Artist’s Road, Dan Mondloch wrote, “When painting plein air, a lot of times I like to bite off way more than I can chew in terms of a subject. That can get me in trouble and I will often fall flat on my face, but I like the intensity and exhilaration of trying! That element of risk is one of the things I love about plein air—stretching yourself to capture that emotional experience as well as the visual one!” Add the quickly changing light of dusk or a moonlit night into a plein air painting experience and that stretch is increased!

We’ve asked some of our favorite artists to show us examples of their night time paintings and to tell us a little bit about their processes in this series of Nocturne Notes. Mondloch shared with us this plein air watercolor nocturne, Garage in Moon Light, in four steps:

“I use a light, mid, dark sequence of painting. When painting a nocturne I still start with the…