Nocturne with Color

 

1/4/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Almost all of my nocturnes have been made in the morning well before sunrise when nearly everything is still dark enough to be easily ignored as I focus on only what is illuminated. If clouds are not obscuring sunrise, I tend to focus on color and make small skyscapitos. On a recent morning, I had the opportunity to do both in one sketch:

At 7:25 a.m., the sun was still low enough below the horizon that everything was black around the porch light across the street, but colors were beginning to illuminate the sky. If I had waited for the colors to become more intense, trees and buildings would have started to become visible, ruining the moment. The sun gave me less than 10 minutes, but that was enough.