Painting process | Golden Hour, Paros

6 Aug

I lived in Kostos, this sweet small town in the mountains of Paros, Greece, for two months in 2023. It had a wonderful view of the sea. But I soon discovered that the very best view was found by wandering through the olive groves to a small church on the opposite hill, turning my back to the sea and watching the sunset transform the village’s surroundings into shades of green, gold and purple. Pure magic.

I wanted this painting to feel like a snapshot of a peaceful moment, purely focused on the sunset light, rich colours and Greek beauty. I hope you can sense my nostalgia and love for the short time I spent here, and how truly special it is.

You can watch the full time-lapse of this painting by clicking the image above.

Preliminary sketches and studies

I used a photo as my reference for this piece, and at first it was quite tricky to get my mind around how to organise and compose such a densely vegetated scene. I moved some conifers around to use as vertical anchors and focused on placing the big horizontal shapes.
I attempted this exact exercise over a year ago and abandoned it because I found it way too hard. So it was extra satisfying to finally find my way into this painting! It’s a patchy little sketch but it gave me a plan.

I did this little sketch to work out where the lightest and dark spots of the painting would be. You can see here what a jumble of shapes the scene was, with nothing much particularly distinguishable. That made it a muddle for me too, but the vertical conifer trees provided those sharp dark anchor points.

I then did these little value paint studies. I was still feeling pretty lost in how I was going to turn these dark grey blobs into a beautiful painting!

This colour study is where it all started coming together for me and I could finally see what the finished painting would be. I was really excited to start the final piece!

The painting process

I spent a couple of hours on the underpainting, drawing in all of the subtle variations of dark and light in the vegetation. With a bit more space here than I had in the sketches, I could really work on the perspective and accurate drawing. I actually overdid it a bit, with the minute detail eventually getting in the way for the next layers - but they gave me confidence in the final painting at this stage.

This is the first layer of the painting finished, with all of the sepia underpainting finally covered in colour. I was really excited about the glowing contrast between the purple shadows and golden-green highlights on the olive trees. The town is just a light blue blob at this stage, but it's already sitting within the landscape.

Oof, I so enjoyed painting the light catching the olive terraces on the mountain in the background. Such simple horizontal brushstrokes give so much to the sense of light and depth in the painting.
I started adding in little balls of paint to indicate the olive trees scattered around. Building up the texture in the plants was something I felt my way instinctively through, and I loved all the mixing and layering of so many different shades of green.

I was careful not to over describe each tree, but some did get individual trunks and their own tiny cast shadow. I think this made it feel more three dimensional and layered.
Bringing the purple shadows into the foreground reallly ties the colours together.

Finished!

"Golden Hour, Paros"

30 × 50cm, oil on linen

I adored painting this piece. The colours are so rich and contrast in a way that captures the glow I remember from my time on the island. Layering the golds and greens in an instinctive way felt fresh and fun, and I hope you can sense that in the final piece.