Award winning sunset

Sunsets always take a good deal of planning.  I usually paint on two nights and I scout locations that are close to home (or at least close to a dinner table)  and that have a simple foreground.  Every time I paint a sunset I end up painting until it is too dark to see anything. Below is the scene-

I am painting the land purposefully darker than usual and also trying not to go blind.  I am underpainting with a reddish mix for the trees and an orange for the field. 

Beautiful orange and lavender colors this night

I am not happy here with the way the sky is going,  I think it is going to be wiped off soon...those thin wispy gray front clouds are hard to capture.

Getting dark too quickly

I am however happy with the land.  Now I will wait for another sunset another night that might inspire me with clouds that are arranged in layers and that have more density.

Rustico al Tramonto  o/panel  8x10in

I didn't take any photos on the actual night that I finished this painting- oops - I was in a frenzy as usual.  You can see that in the top part of the sky there are three simple layers - the blue sky, next a soft orange cloud layer, and finally the lavender close clouds that were painted with slightly harder edges to record the depth that was actually there in the sky.  I have to keep in mind that the sky is not a flat backdrop, but a layered three dimensional thing.  The bottom part of the sky was painted without individual clouds and was rendered with hazy murky colors.

This painting has recently won  "Best in Show"  at the Eastern Shore Art League member show.  The ESAL is based in beautiful Onancock, Virginia.  The Eastern Shore of Virginia is a wonderful narrow peninsula that is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean  and the Chesapeake bay.  The peninsula is full of salt marshes, islands, creeks, and beaches.