It's been a few weeks, but thank you for checking back as we get into the 4th stage of the Lighthouse painting.
During stage 3 we focused a lot on developing the ocean, where I demonstrated how to build a wave. You may notice that I ended up going back to change my waves in the painting from gentle rolling waves to a breaking wave. I even changed the position of the wave from the center to the right side of the canvas. This is a perfect example of how I went ahead and changed something about my painting, simply because I wasn't satisfied with how the waves were looking.
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| I changed it from rolling waves to a breaking wave for more interest. |
I simply waited until it was dry and then painted over it. Before I did that, however, I moved on to the sand for a while, which gave me time to think about what changes I wanted to make later.
Going away, and then coming back to a painting with fresh eyes is one of the best ways to overcome any challenges you run into. Continuing to work on it while you are frustrated will often lead to more frustration, and I think this is what leads to that feeling that you have "ruined" it.
Honestly, you can't really ruin a painting. Even if it doesn't turn out the way you want, it's still a piece of art that came from you! You can, however, ruin the experience of painting by trying to force what you think should be happening. I have plenty of artwork in my trunk that I would definitely not call my best work. But I don't look at older paintings and say to myself, "wow, I did a terrible job on that!" Instead, I say, "wow, look how far I've come! I have learned so much since then!"
Once I was happy with my new waves, I went back to the sand again. In the previous post, I showed you how I established the lighting in the sand by incorporating all the same colors from the sky.
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| I added a semi-transparent sand color over the top, to create a softer sand look. |
During this stage, I wanted to keep the lights, darks, and hints of color, but I wanted a smoother and more cohesive look to the sand. To accomplish this, I mixed a basic sand color, more on the purple side to keep with the dusk setting, and painted a thin layer over the top. This is called a wash, where the top layer of paint becomes semi-transparent, creating a tint, rather than totally painting over the bottom layer.
To get the paint thin enough for the under layers to show through, I simply added more water to thin out my paint.
One thing to remember in order to do a successful wash, is that you have to make sure the bottom layer is completely dry first! Otherwise the extra water in your wash might strip the paint underneath.
Once the sand is done, the grass can go in, and this means we are very close to finishing this painting!
To do the grass, I wanted to make it look the way you would see it in nature if you were on the beach at dusk. During the dawn and dusk hours, we have a limited color spectrum that we see. Rather than seeing lots of bright colors like green, we primarily see reds, purples, and dark blues.
Keeping this in mind, I am still going to use green in my pallet, but I'm going to tone it way down, to a more muted, dark green. Also, the only places that will actually read "green" once I'm done will be the places that are facing the light source. Everything else will pretty much appear in the shadows.
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| Establishing the lighter, greener grass first. |
I wanted to take some time to show you a little bit about how I do my color shades. I'd be happy to go into color theory more in depth in another post, but for the sake of this particular painting, we'll be focusing on green and red.
If you want a dark green, it's easy enough to think that adding black is the way to go. Likewise, you might think adding black to red is the best way to get dark red. While using black will give you a darker color, you may not be happy with the color you get, and here's why:
1. Black over powers easily!
2. Black dulls!
Instead, I'm using what are known as complimentary colors to create the darker tones I want, without dulling the pigment. So, instead of using black to get dark green, I'm going to use green's complimentary color, which is red. To find out which color is the complimentary color, you'll want to refer to a
Color Wheel. Since green and red are directly across from each other on the color wheel, that makes them complimentary colors.
I have created an example, so you can see the difference between using black to darken, vs using complimentary colors to darken.
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| Complimentary colors in the middle, vs using black on the left and right. |
That's not to say that black doesn't have it's place! You just have to be strategic in how and when to use it.
For this painting, I do want some (not all) of the green to be muted, because we're painting a dusk scene, and too much green will make it look too much like daytime. We still want the grass closest to the light to look lighter, but once that is established, the grass gets darker and more muted toward the foreground (in the shadows).
Just like I used blue to create shadows for both my lighthouse and my sand, I turned to blue first for the grass as well. Then, the darkest, most shadowed areas are where the black comes in. Since black easily over powers, it only takes a tiny amount! You can't have too little, but too much black cannot really be undone, so less is more when it comes to black. Most of the time it is the very last pigment I reach for!
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Starting light first.
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| Then complimentary color. |
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| Then blue and black if shadows are needed. |
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| For something more in the daytime with more sunlight, you can go back over with the lighter colors, so that only the middle (or the inside) and the bottom has the darker tones. On a bush, this is where I would start adding brighter foliage in the front to make it look like shaded branches on the inside, and leaves/foliage basking in the sun on the outside. |
As far as the brush strokes go for the grass, it's very similar to the flicking strokes we practiced for the wave mist. I used two different brushes for my grass, the bigger, shag brush for the larger grass blades in the foreground, and my small flat brush for the grass as it gets smaller toward the background. Since I'm painting lots of grass, rather than individual blades of grass, both of these brushes help me cover a lot of area on the canvas with the general appearance of grass, even though it's not super detailed.
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| Large shag brush. |
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| Made with the shag brush. |
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| Small flat brush. |
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| Shorter grass. |
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| Single grass blade. |
Take the brush to the canvas either flat, OR slightly perpendicular, and flick the paint in an upward stroke. More pressure on the brush at the bottom, and then lifting the pressure as you go up will help create the look of grass blades that are thin and pointed at the top. Grass usually grows in mounds, so doing these brush strokes in a fanning out pattern, with longer strokes in the middle and shorter on the sides, will make a more natural grass look. I like to paint the background grass first and work my way down toward the foreground, so that the grass closest to the viewer always looks like it's in front.
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| Larger grass blades in front, that get smaller and they get farther away. |
I like to use the edge of my flat brush to make individual blades of grass, but a fine tipped, or detailing brush works well too. I typically only do individual blades in the foreground, in front of the generic grass. This saves the details for the foreground instead of trying to do tedious amounts of individual grass blades throughout. The details in the front give the impression that the same type of grass continues in the background, it's just farther away.
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| Darkest, longest grass blades in front, because they are closest to the viewer. The dark color in front also helps the bright colors look even brighter! |
With the grass in place, all of the major components of this painting are there. We have the sky and source of light, the lighthouse, the ocean, the sand, and the grass with bits of ocean peaking through the blades.
The only thing that's left are the highlights and little details to tie everything together.
In Part 5, we'll make this a working lighthouse! I'll also show you how and where to add little glints and reflections of light to make the painting shimmer, with a surprise detail at the end!
We're almost done! Check back again this week for Part 5.
Thanks for reading, and God bless.
