After deciding to reinterpret the composite photo of Stockholm as a tribute to VanGogh's "Starry Night"-- a large print of which hangs over my bed-- I selected a narrow palette of colors fundamentally similar to those used in the original painting, but decidedly warmer. I began by laying in a rough underpainting of the buildings and sketching in the position of the starbursts. As a nod to Edvard Munch (Norwegian rather than Swedish, but still Scandinavian), I decided to build in a distorted vertical emphasis, recalling Munch's most famous painting, "The Scream".

Working in Photoshop with a broad assortment of brushes, the sky was established by painting multiple layers of blues, whites, aquas, and greens, combining them both individually and in groups using primarily the Color, Soft Light, Overlay, Multiply, and Linear Dodge blend modes.

Adding additional layers and adjusting the colors, the buildings were given increased definition and emphasis, and in painting the circular starbursts I paid particular attention to the balance of light and color, so as to unify the lower and upper halves of the image but still encourage the eye to travel upward toward the heavens-- the warm yellows for example, are lighter, softer echoes of the golden brown hues of the buildings.

The final note was to paint in a suggestion of small, soft white stars lightly sprinkled across the sky-- this was a departure from the original, but I'm no VanGogh and, for me, in this image, they were the needed finishing touch.


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