Bugville Nocturne
9×9 inches
Acrylic on paper
©2019 Lucinda Howe

The moon was full during a recent trip to Ft. McAllister State Park. Although we were tired from a day of painting in the sun, we were fascinated by the full moon over the marsh visible from our restaurant table. Several artists took photos and wished they were painting, although no one stopped eating to get out the paints.

Our leader, “Bad Babs” Yongue, proposed that we each paint a nocturne (night) painting the next morning using the photos. Of course, painting from a photograph is not ideal; the camera doesn’t see what the eye sees. Many of us felt this exercise was out of our personal comfort zones. I’ve done a few twilight paintings but haven’t tried painting by moonlight. But we decided to give it a try using the photo along with our memory from the night before.

As we experimented, we made several observations. The colors in the sky aren’t just black or blue as you might expect. We saw green and purple and unnamable grays. The moon’s light contained some yellow or pink and touched the edges of the clouds. The values were mostly dark except for the moon, but the undersides of the clouds were different from the open sky. Some of us felt that the moon by itself was too simplified and used silhouettes of trees or reflections on the water to add interested to the composition.

This exercise stimulated discussion about how to do plein air painting at night. It would work best at the full moon. We’d need a small light on our palettes and canvases. Otherwise it wouldn’t be very different, would it? We also started asking “what if”… What if you painted a nocturne without the moon in the frame? What other ways could you use reflected moonlight or other light sources to illuminate part of the painting?

I felt that I might be more interested in trying a plein air nocturne now that I’ve tried this exercise.

What’s your experience with nocturnes? Do you find them interesting? Tell me about a favorite nocturne painting that you have seen. Have you tried painting one on location? How do you feel about using a photo as a warm up for a plein air experience?