Painting Evening Light
The color of the sunlight in the evening or late afternoon is different than the light during the day. It has a very warm, orange look to it that saturates everything. The shadows are longer and more of a blue and reddish violet. The morning light is a little cooler, midday light is muted and flat, but evening light is warm and orange. If I’m painting outside in the late afternoon I will pre-mix an orange with alizarin crimson and cadmium yellow light and use it in all the sunlit areas along with the local color. For example, a green tree in evening light will have orange added to it. The shadow areas will be affected with ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson along with the local color.
This is a painting by Hanson Puthuff and all the colors in the sunlight are effected by orange, even the purple mountains are effected with the orange light.
In this painting by Edgar Payne you can see the really saturated orange in the cliffs and green grass.
This is a painting I did in Tucson, I applied orange or yellow orange to all the local colors in the low sunlight.