The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Nocturne Notes

Bryan Mark Taylor

San Diego Sunset          30 x 30"     Oil     © Bryan Mark Taylor

   Bryan Mark Taylor shared with us his paintings of cityscapes in twilight and nighttime lighting in our interview with him here:  Voices of Experience - Bryan Mark Taylor. He elaborated further on his nocturne palette for our "Nocturne Notes".

   "For my nocturne palette, I especially like to use Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Violet, Manganese Violet, Viridian, Alizarin Crimson and Transparent Oxide Red. The warm brown helps keep the paint mixtures from getting too cold. I find these subjects inspirational because the subtle color and value shifts create a rich, moody emotion."

Loire Valley Twilight          36 x 48"          Oil          © Bryan Mark Taylor

   "One of my recently completed pieces is called Loire Valley Twilight. This piece was based on a plein air sketch made in 2018 and featured a degree of realism. However, it is a carefully composed piece where I had to arrange, invent and redesign all the elements to make the composition work. This includes colors, values as well as the individual components in the painting. For example, the boats in the foreground were entirely made up based on the general types of vessels you’d find along the river. The values were also carefully executed to create that specific time of day when the sun sets, and the first lights of the city come on."

   In our fascination with how the eye sees and then translates the world around us to our brains, we have found it particularly interesting to study how the eye sees at night. Search for the words "Nocturnes" and "Vision" in the search bar to read many interesting articles about the science of seeing at night and the art of painting at night, or, download our book, Nocturnes - A Primer on Night Painting.

   To see more of Bryan Mark Taylor's work, visit his website at:  Bryan Mark Taylor.