“I painted this view of the historic St Michael’s Museum in the Maryland town of the same name during the Plein Air Easton competition in 2023,” says Thomas Bucci. “Throughout the event, I tried to avoid painting in midday as the area is well known for it’s heat and humidity, but on this day I got a late start. The shadows under the eaves provided a great opportunity to develop a rhythm of light and shadow: light sky, dark trees, light roofs, dark shadows, light siding on the buildings, dark foreground.
“The dark passages of shadow set off the high-key lighting on the wood siding. The color palette was designed to achieve the sense of the warm sunlight on the golden siding against the cooler greens in the background and foreground.
“I painted this piece in two layers. First, I laid in the warm yellows and cool greens and left the wash to dry before coming back with the darkest values. Painting light to dark is a fairly classic watercolor technique, and I work this way about 50 percent of the time.”
Colonial Gold won Best Plein Air Watercolor in the September PleinAir Salon.
