Solid Gold

I painted this distinctive rock with my Maglite torch, which contains six D-cell batteries.

The 16-year-old globe in this torch is tungsten, which results in the warm tones in the rock and sand.  I think it works well in a scene like this with rich, blue sky in the background.

As is the case with a cloudless dawn, the sky exposure is very difficult to control.  Under-exposing the background while painting the foreground allowed me to avoid blowing out the brighter parts of the sky.

Published on Sunday, 5th September, 2010.