Newquay Harbour Fireworks

For a few minutes, a familiar place becomes something completely different. Newquay Harbour is a place I know well, but on the night of the town's Christmas lights switch-on, my attention wasn't really on the harbour itself. It was on the sky above it.

I've wanted to paint fireworks for a while. They fit naturally within The Colour of Night: artificial light appearing against darkness, changing the atmosphere of a familiar place and then disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived.

My reference for Newquay Harbour Fireworks came from the Christmas lights switch-on in Newquay. What interested me wasn't simply the spectacle of the fireworks. It was the contrast they created. Below, the harbour was largely reduced to darkness and silhouette. Above it, the sky suddenly became filled with colour, movement and light.

I wanted the painting to retain that balance. There needed to be enough information in the foreground to locate the scene, but not so much that it competed with what was happening overhead.

So I allowed much of the harbour to disappear into shadow and concentrated the colour and energy in the sky.

The painting was originally created for my 'Acrylic Fireworks at Night' video tutorial for Bristle.

That made the process slightly different from painting purely for myself. As well as making a successful painting, I needed to think about how I could explain the decisions behind it: building colour in layers, creating different types of fireworks, using contrast to make light appear brighter and balancing a dramatic sky against a much quieter foreground.