Blog

One of my favorite professors at Wayne State University, the late artist Stanley Rosenthal, once gave a lecture and opened it with a statement that went something like "artists shouldn't paint sunsets." I don't remember his explanation behind it and I still can't think of reasons why artists should avoid sunsets as a subject matter. Sunsets are beautiful, dramatic, and full of amazing color. Since they occur at the end of the day, they may remind us of what happened to us in the day itself and help us reflect on the good things that occurred and how we could differ in the things we perceive as mistakes that we did. On a deeper level, sunsets may symbolize the end of life and our mortality.

These things usually come to mind when I paint a sunset. They're almost always done as studio paintings because the incredible colors are so quick and unpredictable, they're near impossible to capture in a plein air painting. The downsize of doing it in the studio is that I need to rely on photo reference I take. Cameras are nowhere near as accurate at capturing a sunset's true color as the human eye is, so if I copy the photo exactly, it's still not an accurate portrayal of what I saw. I compromise by using my photo reference as my starting point and then deviating as I feel necessary to convey the mood I felt at the time.

On a recent vacation in the Smoky Mountains, our family did an early evening drive through of Cades Cove, stopping often to enjoy the sites of the cabins, the wildlife, the rainbows after the rain, and the views of the surrounding mountains. The sky was partly cloudy and I figured this could ensure a beautiful sunset. Near the end of our drive, we parked by an open field where deer were grazing. In the western background were the mountains. The sun was almost touching the mountain tops and the clouds were just starting to darken. We were able to take a lot of photos of the deer, who sometimes walked within 30-40 feet of our crowd of a dozen spectators. 

Then the sunset soon gave its show of amazing colors — purple and deep magenta clouds contrasting with a fiery colored sky where the sun was starting to hide itself at the mountain tops. A buck would look up from his grazing to check out the status of the rest of his herd. If the other deers walked a little too far for his comfort, he'd walk toward them to make sure they were safe. The crowd was silent and awestruck at the sublime beauty in front of us. Everyone was taking photos and video quietly, and carefully as not to alarm the deer.

When the sun was completely hidden behind the mountains, the field started to get pretty dark. We quickly returned to our cars while we could still see them. Once in our car, we couldn't stop talking about the things we saw at Cades Cove and what a beautiful ending the deer and sunset provided to us. I knew when I got home and wanted to do some paintings based on this Smoky Mountain trip, that this scene would definitely be one of them. 

Today, I finished a studio painting based on my photos I took of this sunset. I did a few compositions to show a lot of the sky, yet encounter a paradox. When I cropped the top of it for a more panoramic view, it seemed to make the surroundings look bigger. When I didn't crop the top of it and showed more of the colorful clouds above, it looked crammed. Because of this, I chose to do this painting in a 1:2 proportion, which gives more of a sense oft he vast landscape. I named it Perfect Ending because I can't thing of any way that day could have ended any better. This is a 36"x18" oil on canvas I painted solely with painting knives.