In The Dark

About The Watercolor Painting

A flame glows brightest in the dark. I frequently use fire and ice as metaphors, influenced by Robert Frost’s writing. My fascination with flames shows in my youthful and curious expression. In moments of darkness, fire will illuminate our world. I will not let the cold sink into my heart, as it did the night of Snowfall. Not again. My candle’s flame may flicker, but I tend to it and refuse to let the light die out. From a small flame, you can ignite so much. Its potential should be respected, but used only with the utmost care. No matter how cold the world gets, I will not allow others to blow it out. My fire, I will guard with my life. One day, I will use it to set the rest of the world ablaze.

This watercolor painting depicts a young man gazing intently at a single candle flame he cradles in his hands. The composition is strikingly dramatic, with deep shadows surrounding the subject and the warm candlelight casting vivid highlights across his face. I have captured the play of light and shadow, using warm hues to accentuate the boy’s concentrated expression, his blue eyes reflecting the flickering flame. The texture of the candle wax, the detail in his hair, and the subtle tones of his skin are all rendered with exceptional realism, creating a sense of quiet introspection and intimacy. This painting is an atmospheric and emotionally resonant work.

Reference

I decided to use the facial reference of my son over myself, to represent in this painting for many reasons. His longer hair helped better frame the composition. As did his fuller and darker eyebrows. Out of laziness, I wanted to avoid painting my beard’s details with watercolor. I also found it important to incorporate a sense of youth in the expression, to fit the narrative of curiosity and amusement I am steering to.

Artwork Process

A medium watercolor work. This one took a lot of layers. A LOT. I started off with blacking out my absolute blacks first to help set the value range for me to work on. That is in fact pure watercolor used. I almost completely avoided using white opaque pigment, only in the place of a few overlaying corrections. The big experimental thing I did with this piece was glazing a lot of cobalt teal pigment, which gave it this shimmer light effect, which you can only see upon close inspection the bits of blue standing isolated.

Tags

• Keywords:
• human
• figure
• ben
• marcus
• boy
• youth
• fire
• flame
• candle
• dark
• glow
• warm
• indoors
• Collections:
• timeline
• portraits
• Colors:
• brown
• red
• orange
• tan
• Categories:
• realism
• narrative
• painting
• Mediums:
• watercolor