STEP 6
Using a painting knife, I ladled on the dark color of the lake,
using neutral tint straight from the tube.STEP 5
To add luminosity to the moon, I masked a small circle of the
white surface with a dollop of paper cement. Then, after placing
a strip of painter’s tape along the horizon, I used a watercolor
brush dipped in a medium of 25 percent stand oil and 75
percent Gamsol to lay in the sky with Prussian blue, black and
neutral tint. I blended this coat with a soft watercolor brush.
STEP 8
With tape protecting the building and the water,
I used a flat watercolor brush to lay in another coat of
Prussian blue, black and neutral tint in the sky. I knew
the sky shouldn’t be too dark, as I'd seen other painters
avoid excessive darkness in nocturnes lest they lose
all contrast between sky and ground. By blending the
paint with a clean flat watercolor brush, I smoothed
out the brush marks and lightened the sky.STEP 7
I blocked in the figure with transparent earth yellow,
caput mortuum deep, black and white, plus a little
ultramarine blue to shift all the colors darker and cooler
than they appeared in my reference. With the same
colors, I started painting the high-rise building. I then
added a section of oriental rug in the lower right corner
and laid in the guitar with a thin coat of burnt sienna and
transparent earth yellow, as seen in the step 8 image.ArtistsNetwork.com 29