The Feeling of Light

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

By the Sea Charles Hawthorne

“...It is no small thing in painting to make people see what kind of day it is. I have seen things so sensitive that you could tell whether it was morning or afternoon. That is painting - to tell people what the thing looks like. I once painted a canvas and someone said, ‘That looks like Sunday morning!’ I don’t know why, but it did, and it was painted Sunday morning.” - Charles W. Hawthorne (1872-1930)

For any of us who pursue painting from life in natural light, Hawthorne’s words ring as true today as the day he said them. If we are to be interpreters of light, then we must become masters of seeing and painting it. This is all easier said than done!

Our business is painting the effects of light on our subject, not necessarily the thing itself, and to get really good at that job we must become ultra-sensitive to the light. To develop this “painter-vision” requires that we begin to see the world in terms of color rel…