A Summer Evening – Window Series

MEDIUM: Digital Painting | STYLE: Painterly Realism | SIZE: 11 x 14| ORIENTATION: Landscape | TOOLS: Procreate, 13″ iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro | SERIES: Windows | AVAILABILITY: Prints available.

A Summer Evening captures a quiet pause at day’s end — a woman seated at an open window, curtains drawn back to a golden sunset over green hills. Her hands rest clasped in her lap, a wedding ring catching the fading light, as she watches the evening settle. The piece is the second panel in the Windows series, exploring solitude and reflection through the passage of a single day.

ARTIST’S PROCESS: A Summer Evening was painted in Procreate on a 13″ iPad Pro using the Apple Pencil Pro. As with the other Windows series pieces, the composition began with a mood board establishing the day-to-night lighting arc across all three panels, ensuring this piece’s golden hour palette would sit naturally between the overcast tones of A Rainy Afternoon and the cooler nocturnal light planned for A Moonlit Night. Particular attention was given to layering the warm exterior light against the cooler interior shadow to keep the figure grounded in the room while the eye is still drawn outward through the window.

CHALLENGE:

Identified challenge: Balancing two competing light sources — the warm, high-contrast sunset glow coming through the window and the cooler, softer ambient light inside the room — without letting either wash out the other or make the figure look flat.

How it was handled: The sunset light was kept concentrated near the window and treated as the dominant warm source, while the interior tones (blouse, curtains, skin in shadow) were shifted subtly cooler to create separation. This kept the figure readable as in the room, not just silhouetted against the view, while still letting the golden light feel like the emotional center of the piece.

SUBJECTS AND THEMES: Woman at window — sunset — golden hour — solitude — reflection — quiet domestic moment — marriage and companionship — evening light — nature view — floral curtains — figurative portrait — Windows series