Friday, July 20, 2018

Louis Douzette's Moonlight Moods

Louis Douzette (German 1834-1924) was such a nocturne specialist that he was known as "Moonlight Douzette."


Here are some basic tips we can learn from his work:

1. Keep the overall value range dark, especially in the outer edges of the picture.


2. The color doesn't have to be very blue. The chroma can be very low, almost gray. There can be a little warmth around the moon.


3. To convey the effect of lantern light, set up a very subtle warm and cool contrast between the light and the sky.



4. Keep the edges very soft away from the light and its reflections.

More images on DuckDuckGo
Images on Tutta Art Pittura

3 comments:

Carole Mayne said...

This was just the inspiration I needed after studying the quarter moon dipping down over the ocean last night. I wanted to run to the studio and paint, and will asap!

Thank you for finding so many awesome artists to study.

Unknown said...

Mr Gurney, i'd like to see a video on this topic, how to turn a daylight scene into a night scene, (using your gamut technique). Sometimes the reference is perfect, things are in the right place etc, but... the light,not.

thank you for this awesome post.

scottT said...

The luminosity of those moonlit paintings is incredible.