David Gallup
52 California Sunsets: #27- July 4, 1999
Nature's Fireworks
One of the difficulties in painting sunsets is that the light fades so quickly that by the end of it I couldn't see what I was painting, a condition which led me to wear a light strapped to my forehead during certain late sunset paintings. There were a few nights, however, when late in the sunset the clouds above me lit up so yellow that for just two minutes the ambient light actually increased later in the sunset, lighting all below in an eerie warm glow. It is a very rare phenonenon which always made me feel that I was being bathed in magic. This July 4th was one such night.