The History of the Kingdom of The West
Scrolls

The Northern Lights -- First Color Study

Photo and Contribution
by Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

The Northern Lights -- First Color Study
There are two steps to painting something realistically.

Step one consists of looking at that which you wish to paint. Look, look, and look some more. Observe. Examine. Check it out. Therefore, I looked at many, many images of the aurora. Luckily, there are entire galleries of pictures at www.spaceweather.com and on other web sites. Which was good because I have seen the aurora exactly once in my life and that was from right here in Benicia, California, at the height of the most severe geomagnetic storm of the solar cycle.

Step two consists of practicing. That means making sketches and/or color studies. This was the first color study and it measures about 3 inches by 3 inches and was done of a scrap of leftover black paper.

I knew I would be under painting the aurora first in white; I figured out the need to under paint from two experiences. The first one was when I was admiring some beautiful astronomical paintings at a science fiction convention. The artist happened to be standing nearby and heard my exclamations and when I asked how they had rendered the gorgeous multi-colored nebula featured in one piece, proceeded to explain that the black background was painted first, then the nebula was painted over it in white paint, using an airbrush. Once it dried, the various colors were airbrushed in over the white, building in layers. The white under coat was what gave the colors their vibrancy, and I filed that information away and later used it when doing Lorenzo's Pelican scroll. Also, Aldith shared her experience in trying to use red ink on black paper while doing calligraphy and coming to find that the red lost all its intensity against the black despite the fact that the red was fairly opaque. When she first lettered it in white, then went over it with the red, the red color retained its value.

After roughing in the bands of the aurora with white, I attempted to over paint it using green. It stank. Just wasn't working. Figured I had blown this one and would have to do another study and retired for the night. The following evening I rummaged through the paint box, looked through all my materials, and unearthed my dusty set of watercolors. Sure enough, I had on the watercolor palette the very green (almost a chartreuse) color that appeared in the aurora pictures; I think the color was Sap Green or some such shade but as it lived on the palete and not in a tube I can't be certain. The disgusting greens I had tried were painted over with more white, then the watercolor put down over that -- it was just the right color! However, the shape of the aurora was not yet right. A second study was needed. -- Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

The West Kingdom History Website was created by and is maintained by Hirsch von Henford (mka Ken Mayer).