West Window Temperature Studies

 

11/7/21 Maple Leaf neighborhood, late afternoon

The day after my head was blown open was just as dark, gray, wet and blustery as the previous day. Squinting through my dirty, rainy windows at the usual scene, I realized that it would make an ideal study of color temperatures because I couldn’t see much clearly: It was all just a lot of mostly monochrome, mostly mid-tone values. I picked out a dull, muted triad (Derwent Lightfast Strawberry, Gold, Ocean Blue) to match the day (above). Suddenly it stopped raining, the cloud cover split open, and a streak of blue brightened the sky. But as a color temperature, it was cool compared to the clouds. The light passed as quickly as it came.

A couple of days later, it was windy enough to take the power down in some neighborhoods, but the morning was brilliantly sunny. With morning light, the same window scene looked entirely different. This time I chose a brighter triad (Lightfast Magenta, Yellow, Midnight Blue 70%) to capture the light (below). The bright blue sky was cool, yet warmer than the light gray house on the right (with strong but strange shadows from the trellis above the upper deck). I didn’t want to warm the sky with yellow or it would have turned greenish, but if I stayed with the triad, I didn’t know how to make the house cooler.

I’ve never worked out color temperature questions in this way – and I love it!

11/9/21 Morning