Last year's paintout at Villa Catalana Cellars was a really spectacularly lovely evening, despite the presence of too many yellowjackets (fortunately they weren't interested in the food I'd brought to eat), and as the last light was waning I got a photo from the house patio. It didn't begin to capture the colors my eyes saw in the sunset though, so when I got ready to finish it in the studio, I made myself two references—a dark one that showed the colors and values of the clouds and sky, and a much lighter one so I could see all the foliage and pond details that came out black in the dark image.
Since I usually work from photos in the studio, this happens to me all the time—getting a photo that shows my composition but not what my eyes were really able to see. This is the first time I've ever used two photos, and it really helped me a lot. I really wanted the dark shapes to be somewhat differentiated, to recreate the sensation of being just able to make out things in the dim light. The only really tricky parts were finding the right values for the white tiles on the pagoda roof, and the hanging lights there and on the pavilion. I settle on a muted brownish-orange for the hanging lights.
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