Color palettes of hill and sky

I did this as an exercise regularly last year in observing how light changes through out the day and how this color of light affects the color of local tones, here the hills, trees and and light colored houses. First , I made a `palette´ with color samples cut out from art catalogues, arranging them on a tray from light to dark top to bottom and yellow to violet left to right, like how you would arrange pastel sticks on a palettte. These I tried to match with the shifting colors of the landscape. I would do this every morning or just whenever there was some breathtaking light and color in the atmosphere. The light is usually yellow in the mornings and the overall tone is warm, it gets warmer as the sun rises but later in the day towards noon it shifts towards a bluish white. The highlights take on a corresponding color and the shadows a complementary color to that of the light source. For landscape painting, there are two major light sources, the sun and the sky. I will write more on this another time. The paper samples were useful, sometimes there’s this really arresting quality of light which you observe and it vanishes before you can get your paints out, and color mixes ready. I stuck them onto wax paper in my book and there, I have some really good color palettes to use. Its beautiful here living in this quiet place in the Black forest region.