After the debacle of "The Big Sky" it feels good to be getting on with a painting that seems to be going well (so far!). This is a painting size that I used to feel was quite large (18" x 36") but after trying to deal with the metre-square area of "The Big Sky" it seems quite small and unintimidating. It came out of a request from the Medici Gallery for some intensely coloured land/cityscapes for the June exhibition. I suddenly recalled a location very near to where I live that looks great at dusk when the artificial street lighting comes on. I went down to the seafront in the daytime to quickly sketch what I had in mind (seen in the sketchbook above the painting in the first photo) but had to return at dusk as I needed to see what the colours were in the shadow areas of the foreground beach hut and brickwork. It turns out that the beach hut, pale green in the daytime, needs quite a tricky combination of glazing/scumbling a palish grey/green/blue over a muted purple/green underpainting. The sky will be rosy pink/orange so green/blue in the shadows will be a logical complementary; a mix of Prussian Blue and Red/Orange (with a tint of white) is providing a pleasing colour for the shadow colours everywhere else.
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