Aurora Borealis
A northern sky alive with shifting green light over snowy peaks.
Acrylic Artwork by Catherine Knee
I’ve seen so many aurora borealis paintings online and decided to try my hand at one. How hard could it be… right? Right? I saw how they all did it and it looked easy as pie!
As it turns out, it is much harder than I thought! I painted the night sky three whole times and hated it each time. I ended up overpainting it again and again before finally admitting defeat on the fourth attempt. At my current skill level, the soft, flowing green ribbons of the northern lights I’d imagined just weren’t happening. The sky… well… let’s just say even the fourth try didn’t come out as planned. I’ve now officially retired from ever painting another aurora. (I wish I had officially retired entirely, but there you go, that is another thing altogether!)
That said, I did like how my snow-covered mountains turned out. I feel like I’m starting to get a bit more control over making them look like they’re really in the distance and not just weird triangles of paint plopped on the canvas. Maybe it’s time to try something with them larger in the frame and with more detail, to see how that goes. Onto the possible landscape painting list it goes!
I used only black, white, purple, blue, and green acrylics for the whole piece. I seem to use very few colours when I paint. I might need to be more adventurous, but all in good time.
Oh my god, I have to tell you! I somehow managed to get acrylic paint all over my mobile phone screen. Argh! Panic stations! Red alert! I was terrified it had been there long enough to dry and never come off again! I didn’t know if it could permanently embed into the glass. What the hell do I know about mobile phones and techie stuff?! That is my other half’s domain, and there was no way in hell I was gonna go and ask him about it! Imagine how it would go:
Me: “Sweetheart? Can acrylic paint embed into a phone screen?”
Him: “WHY?! What have you done now?!”
Me: “Oh, no reason. None at all. Just me being curious… you know how I am… okay, it was me, but it was an accident…”
Him: “You are such a @$%%^ liability! Give it here!”
Okay, so he would have sorted it, but yeah, I didn’t need that conversation, ha ha ha! Thank goodness, it all came off! Note to self: painting and phones? Not a good combo! And there I was, trying to be so good listening to a Spotify lesson on life hacks whilst I worked on my night landscape painting and that had to go and happen!
So, anyway, here it is… my first (and last!) attempt at the aurora borealis in acrylics. Hah! If I ever see this image again after this, it will be too goddam soon!
Inspiration
This painting was inspired by a TikTok video from “Artwork by S”.
This acrylic painting by Catherine Knee captures the aurora borealis over snow-covered mountains, pine trees, and a dark reflective lake beneath a northern night sky.
Want to see another night landscape?
👉 Check out Nightfall
Fancy reading a magical true life story?
👉 Try Christmas Miracle
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