New Painting: "Sunset Over the Rooftops, Portsmouth"

Here is one of my recent paintings, painted en plein air (outdoors, on location) last week.  It is 9 x 12", oil on canvas.

"Sunset Over the Rooftops, Portsmouth", 2009

I finally had good weather so I could take photographs of it in the correct sunlight.  I painted this one, starting at 8 PM here in New England, so  you can imagine that I only had a short stretch of time to complete this outdoors, especially as the shapes and colors of the clouds and the light were all the while changing.  I painted this outside of my house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I spotted a beautiful little patch of sunlight and clouds behind the rooftops of neighboring buildings.  I love how the colors of the shadows and highlights are repeated in the clouds and the buildings themselves.  

I also took photos of my progress, if you would like a sneak peek inside my process for painting landscapes.  I chose Cadmium Red Light for my underpainting, quickly painted as I observed the cloud formations.

I then mixed my colors and values for the clouds, and quickly painted them in while they were still not moving too fast, and before the sun completely set.

After I finished putting down the colors I saw, I blended them as I saw them blended in the sky, twisting and heightening the shapes as I usually do with my abstracted clouds in my landscapes.

After the sky was done, I completed the buildings, which were not changing colors and values as quickly as the clouds to complete the painting.