I want to share the approach I use for painting the effects of different time-of-day lighting on the same scene, which is a useful study exercise I return to regularly.

The same scene, six times: dawn, early morning, midday, golden hour, dusk, night. Same composition, same value structure, six entirely different color solutions.

What changes: the light source color (from warm dawn to near-white midday to orange-gold hour to cool blue night), the shadow color (complements of the light source each time), the ambient saturation (highest in golden hour, lowest in overcast midday), and the contrast (highest at midday direct sun, lowest in overcast or night).

What doesn't change: the underlying form, the basic value structure, the composition.

The learning: after painting this exercise five times I can predict the color logic for any time of day at the start of a painting rather than discovering it partway through. The exercise converts theoretical color temperature knowledge into practical prediction.