This was an exercise set for the Thursday afternoon class at Raphaels Park. I wanted to see what each learner would produce when given three landscapes that were connected by a body water, sky and atmosphere.  

I used three different sized canvases, acrylics and some graphite to sketch each scene on  to the canvases. 

For this exercise I started painting the Moonlight at Midnight scene first. I just love the dark blues in the sky and the water. I mixed an ultramarine blue with Mars black and also some ultramarine with Payne’s Gray. I used turquoise blue and ultramarine blue mixed together for the lighter pure blues. I mixed a titanium white with my darkest blue mix for the clouds in the sky. To sketch the round moon shape I used an appropriate sized roll of sticky tape as a template.  

I used the paint in mixes that were almost pure paint, so it was really opaque and covered the canvas very quickly. I left small parts of the canvas white to suggest the light emitting from the moon.  

I then painted the Evening Sunset painting. I used some of my dark blues from the previous painting mixed with yellow to create different greens, and some I mixed with a brown to make the colour of the railing and steps. I used a magenta, turquoise blue, ultramarine blue, lemon yellow and titanium white for the scene of water and sky in the background. When that was 70% dry I painted in the shapes of the leaves with my green mixes (using a pointillist brushstroke). I painted in the edge of the surf with some pure titanium white. I painted the green area with a mixture of greens I had mixed with the dark blue. Finally I painted in the hand rail and steps using burnt umber, burnt sienna and blue mixed in varying degrees. 

Finally, I painted Morning Snow. I used my paints impasto style for most of my painting. This was a very limited palette: ultramarine mixed with zinc white, an orange I mixed with lemon yellow and magenta, zinc white, a chromatic black and Payne’s Gray.  

I painted in the sky first, really liberally using my yellow, painted in the tree trunks with the chromatic black, painted in the bridge with Payne’s Gray and then painted in the snow, using my white/blue mixes. I painted in the orange light on the water and over painted that when it was 50% dry with my blue mix. I then took a large brush and applied thick brushstrokes of my blue white mixes. I let that dry and then strengthened the edges of the river banks with darker blues and added more white for the snow on the tree trunks.