Finding the perfect light for painting landscapes isn't always as simple as going out to your favorite place and hoping for the best.
I've been hiking and painting Marin for the better part of my life and I learned a long time ago that the light shining over the landscape doesn't always cooperate with what you hope it will do. The elements that create a great lighting effect all have to come in to focus at the same time in order for the golden hour to become truly golden.
Most of the time the best lighting will have some sort of atmospheric haze or fog to help create a scene that will be truly memorable and worth putting in the hours to put it on to canvas. Lighting is one of the most important elements of photography and painting, and with the right lighting an image can be exciting and hold the interest of the viewers.
In my early years of hiking and exploring the hills of Marin County, I would go out on a hike for the day and I hoped I would stumble upon a lucky scenario where the lighting would be just right by the time I would get to my destination, but that perfect light was a rarely encountered when I finally got there. It was only when I decided to treat my hikes like a quest for light. The quest was to arrive in the place I wanted to paint at a time of day when I could study the changing light, while having time to study the landscape light while the sun makes its way to the horizon. Once I had this mindset, I was finding myself in these exquisite areas with lighting usually described as "the golden hour" with the sun's light filtered through the lower atmosphere and shadows from the hills adding contrast to the scene. With the passing years I learned when the best time to be in the place I wanted to be and the time of year when the light was at the angle I wanted it to be shining on the hills. Eventually this was reflected in my paintings as my obsession for this perfect light grew and my inspiration for painting these places became my passion.
Comments