El Capitan Under a Starry Night Sky

El Cap Under the Stars, 7x10"

I guess I can't get enough of these starry night sky paintings!  I painted this one concurrently with the Delicate Arch painting in my previous post.  El Capitan in Yosemite is indeed a special and iconic piece of rock.

Reference Photo

I took this reference photo one morning.  I guess we were fortunate to get a camp site in the valley that year!  I liked the composition, enhancing the sheer vertical nature of the nose of El Capitan, framed by the trees.

Pencil Drawing on Watercolor Paper

I traced the photograph using a clear plexiglass sheet and a wet erase pen, then used a light table to transfer the drawing onto Arches cold press 140 lb watercolor paper.  I taped the paper onto a plexiglass sheet using blue painters tape.

Underpainting Wash on El Cap

I like to break the ice in many of my paintings by first doing an underpainting wash of warm yellow and rose, painted wet-into-wet.  I like the colorful rosy glow this technique ultimately creates.  I emphasize yellow where there will be more illumination, and rose in places destined to be in shadow.

Underpainting Wash on Trees

I also did an wash of yellows and reds in the trees.  Since most of the trees will be dark value, it's fine to have more rose.  I emphasized yellow on the tips of the trees that might catch more "backlight" from the sky glow.

Initial Shadow on El Cap

I could have gone either way at this point with the rock of El Cap, map the shadow or start dropping in some local color.  I mostly mapped the shadow but there is a bit of Quinacridone Rust in areas to start representing the local color.  My blue is Indanthrone Blue, but I could have easily chosen Ultramarine.  I love both but I cannot resist the richness of the Indanthrone Blue.

First Layers Local Color

I further developed the rock of El Cap by painting a bit more local color in the form of sienna and Q. Rust.  I also started mapping out the cracks and mottling on the rock face.  Also, I have a first layer of local color for the trees.  The right trees are evergreen and the left is a cottonwood.  For both I painted them wet-into-wet using Azo Green, Indanthrone Blue, with a bit of rose blended in here and there.  I made sure there was variation of both color and value in the trees.

Completed Painting

Well, I was not so good about continuing to take photos of all the intervening steps between the last photo and the finished painting.  But generally I:

1.  Further developed El Cap by dropping in more local color and shadow areas until I was satisfied.

2.  I painted the far ridge first with a rosy underpainting, then about three more washes to include local color, shadow, and cracks/crevices.

3.  A second darker layer on the trees, more intense mixture of Azo Green and Indanthrone Blue, careful to leave "holes" in the trees for the prior layer to come through and give an impression of light in the trees.

4.  Paint the starry sky using same process as demonstrated in my previous blog post for Delicate Arch.  The streak of the "Milky Way" is positioned as a design element to "point" to the star of this painting, El Capitan.

5.  I used my Rapidograph ink pen to outline all the edges of washes in the landscape features.

6.  I used a couple dots of white gouache to represent the headlamps of climbers camped out for the night on El Cap.  Can you find them?