Thanks for sitting through this lesson on how to make a starry night painting.
Techniques for painting a starry sky
I started this beach sunset painting a few weeks ago but didn’t quite finish. It needed a few stars and brighter light at the horizon. This was a sunset I shared with good friends several years ago in South Carolina. The sky was amazing!
I enjoy painting the night sky. The challenge is to give the sky a sense of air and depth even though it might be very dark. I have a few tips for painting successful night skies.
- Observe the sky in the evening. Spend time just watching from twilight until total darkness. Make notes about the colors and values you see. How do they change? Soak it all in. These observations will help you when having to work from photos.
- Take night photos at twilight. When the sun has set there is still some light in the sky. These deep dark and rich blues of early evening make for the most interesting night scenes. Even better is when the lights begin to come on. These little lights add even more interest to the night sky.
- Avoid using BLACK pastel. We tend to think that at night the sky is black. Even when the sky appears very dark painting it with black will make it look flat and heavy and dull. Choose dark value blues for a more believable night sky.
- There is often a gradation of color seen in the night sky. I like to use my darkest cool blues for the zenith (top) of the sky and gradually transition to rich warmer turquoisey blues closer to the horizon. Scroll down to see samples.
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| Black vs. Deep Blue. Which do you prefer for a night sky? |
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| Starry Sky a sliver of the night 11×4 |
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| A selection of beautiful deep blue pastels perfect for the night sky |
The next time you are inspired to paint the night sky see how beautiful it can be with blues!
Posted by Karen at 5:08 PM
Step 1: Wet-in-Wet and Warm Colors
For this step-by-step watercolor painting, we’re skipping the base sketch and allowing the paint speak for itself. Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds! First, load your no. 12 round brush with clean water and apply it to the entire page. Make sure that your paper is damp and not over-saturated, and pick up any water that pools around the edges with a paper towel before you apply paint. Next, begin coloring this starry night painting by applying Yellow Ochre via the wet-in-wet technique. Use sweeping, diagonal strokes that begin on the right and end at a slant on the left. While the layers are still wet, apply Cadmium Red Hue into the yellow layer, allowing the colors to overlap while letting some yellow shine through. It’s important that these layers remain wet for the next few watercolor techniques, so jump right in to step 2!
Step 2: Cooling Down the Evening Sky
In this step, we’re finishing up the foundation for a beautiful night sky. Use your round brush loaded with Ultramarine to apply loose strokes into the top part of your watercolor painting. Do the same with Dioxazine Violet, and let the purple frame the blue tint in the middle of the painting.
To give the values interest, deepen the purple with some blue and keep it concentrated on the left side of the painting. Finish off the sky by using Indigo to cover up the remaining white space at the top of the frame, and bring it down on either side to frame the blues and purples in the middle.
Notice how interesting the brushstrokes look in the picture? You can create different kinds of impressions simply by changing the way you use your brush. You can use the brush tip to dot the page, or the side of the brush to create wider strokes. Experiment with pressure to create thin to thick brushstrokes. While you’re at it, allow the colors to mix together on their own so that they’re able to both blend together and retain their own unique hues. This is called a variegated wash, and it’s a great way to create wild, unique patterns out of your colors!
Step 3: Create a Sweeping Night Sky With Watercolor Techniques
Now that the base colors have been established, let’s polish them up a bit! Strengthen the warm colors at the bottom by adding more Cadmium Red Hue and Yellow Ochre. Next, add a blob of dark purple to the leftmost end of the warm colors layer. Load your brush with diluted Mauve and start your strokes at the purple blob, “dragging” the purple tint into the reds and yellows with sweeping, left to right brushstrokes. This will produce a cool, wispy effect that will give your night sky a dreamy atmosphere.
Recognizable Style
Van Gogh’s famous swirling brushstroke and heavy black outlines emerged in his later works, accompanied by globs of thick paint that create a textured, tactile painting verging on the edge of relief sculpture. With his twisting brushstrokes he created a graceful flow in which swirls of colour seemed to float within the canvas. Even his juxtaposition of colour seemed more complimentary; for instance, he replaced his usual bold primary colours with softer pastels or similar shades of blues, grey and olive-green.
He endeavoured to capture the expressiveness of nature. So dedicated was he to the genre of landscape painting that even when he was confined indoors during various periods of convalescence, he would paint the view from his window. Though he painted many outdoor scenes in Paris, both cityscapes and suburban vistas, Van Gogh’s relocation to the South of France in 1888 enabled him to take full advantage of a location where he could experience the changes of the seasons, witness spring in bloom and experiment with depictions of the changing effects of light and colour.
During his Parisian phase, Van Gogh not only experimented with a lighter palette, but he also began to explore the use of vibrant, saturated colour as inspired by the many Japanese prints that he and Theo collected. Japanese prints emphasized flat geometric forms, vibrant colour combinations and asymmetrical compositions, which attracted Van Gogh immensely. He was enthralled most of all by the use of pure, saturated colour and the juxtaposition of vibrant colour planes within the picture frame. It enabled him to realize the power that colour has to evoke emotional responses.
Enthusiastic about his endeavours in Arles he wrote, ‘I feel that in these surroundings there is everything one needs to do good work. So, it will be my own fault if I don’t succeed.’
Painted from the memory of the night view from his window in his sanatorium room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, ‘The Starry Night’ marks a departure from his earlier frank view to a more imaginative depiction. Expressing both Van Gogh’s anxieties and religious feelings, a solitary, dark cypress tree rises above a village with a tall church steeple. Clouds, stars and a bright crescent moon swirl across the seemingly omnipotent night sky.
In no other painting is Van Gogh’s swirling brushstroke more evident than in this painting, which has been described as a field of rolling energy. Depicted is a quiet village under a midnight-blue sky speckled with bright, radiating stars. The effect is almost fantastical. In a letter to Theo describing the painting, Van Gogh wrote, ‘Looking at the stars always makes me dream. Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star.’
He acknowledged his departure from representing nature in a subjective way to expressing ‘exaggerations from the point of view of arrangement, their lines warped as in old wood’. The lines to which he is referring are what give the painting movement. The only interruption to this movement is the silhouetted cypress tree that intersects the painting, an allusion to death which intersects life, revealing the artist’s preoccupation with thoughts of the afterlife.
The Origins of Starry Nights
While both ‘Starry Nights’ are impressive and full of emotion, Van Gogh’s preoccupation with the night sky began before he painted either works. In ‘The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night,’ he painted in the top corner the night sky, beginning his journey of development that would later result in both other works.
In September 1888, after spending August painting sunlit fields, Van Gogh painted this and described it in a letter: ‘the terrace of a café at night, lit up by a big gas lantern, with a patch of blue star-filled sky’. The bold colours contrast yet complement each other, the forms have been flattened, and there is a lack of shadowing, characteristic of the Japanese print. The objects are slightly and purposely tilted towards the viewer’s gaze. Thus, the choice to forgo accurate perspective is deliberate. Interestingly, Van Gogh’s colour choices, which are on the warm side, are also carefully picked in order to evoke feelings of restfulness.
Artworks featured in this article (in order of appearance):
- Starry Night over the Rhone, or, Starry Night, 1888
Oil on canvas, 72.5 x 92 cm (281⁄2 x 361⁄5 in) - The Starry Night, 1889
Oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm (29 x 361⁄4 in)
- The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night, 1888
Oil on canvas, 81 x 65.5 cm (317⁄8 x 253⁄4 in)
For more Vincent Van Gogh, take a deeper look in our title, ‘ Vincent Van Gogh: Masterpieces of Art‘ ISBN: 9781783612093. Available here.
