Painting from Feeling (Weekly Challenge #188)

Natalia C.
7 days ago
4 min read

This week, we’re heading east to the shadowy trees and glowing city parks of Almaty, Kazakhstan, a place where night transforms the ordinary into a spectacle of luminous color. The magic of light installations across the park has turned a simple forest path into a dreamlike world, glowing with blues, magentas, and purples. These surreal tones aren’t just visual tricks. They’re deeply emotional, inviting us to pause and feel rather than just observe. These park scenes capture that urban-natural blend, where street lamps and colored lights meet the rustling autumn leaves. There’s stillness and movement, mystery and calm and a chance to use emotional color harmony to say something beyond the literal.

The atmosphere in these photos is already unusual, which makes them perfect for pushing your interpretation. Whether you want to emphasize glow, mood, contrast, or mystery, this week is all about how color makes you and your viewer feel.

Focus Point: Emotional Color Harmony

Our theme this week is Emotional Color Harmony, a slightly different approach from traditional color theory. Instead of using color strictly for realism or composition, we’re inviting you to choose your palette based on mood, atmosphere, and storytelling.

This kind of harmony isn't about perfectly balanced complements or textbook triads. It’s about how color relationships evoke feelings — comfort, tension, nostalgia, wonder. That might mean intensifying certain hues, muting others, or shifting reality to suit a particular tone.

Ask yourself:

What emotional tone do I want to create?
Do the colors in my painting support that mood?
What happens if I exaggerate the coolness or warmth?
Can I remove local color entirely and replace it with expressive hues?

Each of the reference images this week already pushes into expressive territory with lighting that bathes the scene in violet and indigo. Your job is to make that color work intentionally — not just copying it, but guiding it.

Want help understanding how to build a palette for mood? Read my previous post Emotional Color Harmony – How to Use Color to Convey Mood in Landscape Art

Analyzing This Week’s Reference Photos

Now let’s dive into the reference photos of this week.

Photo 1: Violet Glow Through the Trees

An archway of trees frames a lit path where the colors shift dramatically from magenta to blue. The play of light and shadow is theatrical, casting long shapes across the leaves.

Trees in a park illuminated by vibrant purple and blue lights at night, creating a magical and serene atmosphere. Dimly lit background. — Week 188: Almaty, Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: @the_ivory_album

Challenge as a Photo: The high-saturation purple can overwhelm if not controlled. Balancing depth and glow will be key.

Focus Questions:

What mood do the color zones suggest?
Can you shift the hues to evoke calm or tension?
What role does shadow color play in the overall harmony?

Tips:

Consider a limited palette of 2–3 dominant hues.
Let temperature guide the emotional tone (cool = calm, warm = intense).
Use softened edges where light bleeds through.

Photo 2: Blue Corridor with City Glow

A long pathway leads into the distance, flanked by leafless trees and dotted with tiny streetlamps. Cool blues dominate, with just a hint of warm magenta peeking through the trees.

Two people walk on a path in a park at night, surrounded by trees. The scene is lit with vibrant purple and blue lights, creating a magical ambiance. — Week 188: Almaty, Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: @the_ivory_album

Challenge as a Photo: The deep blue tones can flatten form if values aren't varied carefully.

Focus Questions:

How do you show both structure and softness in cool tones?
Could you flip the palette to a warmer harmony?

Tips:

Use layering to build light gradually.
Introduce warm neutrals in focal areas.
Keep background tones subdued to build depth.

Photo 3: Center Glow and Reaching Branches

The light source in the center burns pink-violet, radiating outward through silhouetted tree limbs. This photo has the most dramatic single-source glow.

Trees in a park are lit with vibrant purple and pink lights at night. The ground is covered with leaves, creating a mystical atmosphere. — Week 188: Almaty, Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: @the_ivory_album

Challenge as a Photo: It’s easy to overstate the light and lose form.

Focus Questions:

What emotion does that central glow suggest?
Can you create soft contrast without harsh edges?

Tips:

Glaze thin layers to simulate glow.
Use lost edges and soft transitions.
Add texture in midground for interest.

Photo 4: Quiet Blue Forest with Pink Leaves

A more subdued moment — the park is dotted with leaves and sparse light, but a cool, melancholy blue dominates.

Trees in a park at night, illuminated by blue and purple lights. Fallen leaves cover the ground, creating a vibrant, mystical atmosphere. — Week 188: Almaty, Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: @the_ivory_album

Challenge as a Photo: The low contrast may feel flat unless you push subtle variations.

Focus Questions:

What emotional story do you want to tell — peace, sadness, quiet magic?
How can small accents bring the piece to life?

Tips:

Let one hue dominate, but break monotony with small surprises.
Introduce temperature shifts in shadow zones.
Suggest detail with texture, not outlines.

This week’s prompt invites emotional experimentation — color not just as decoration, but as voice. Let your painting reflect what you feel, not just what you see. Whether you lean into the surreal or mute the palette for mood, we’re excited to see what you create.

Post your painting on Instagram by Thursday, 20 November 2025 at 23:59 CET, using the hashtag #landscapeartclub188 and tagging @landscapeartclub.

Want to practice more? Explore our Reference Library!

Let the colors speak — and happy painting!