Secret Santa!

 I finished my secret Santa gift for a coworker, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. My coworker is kind, caring, and works hard for the needs of her patients. Whether she guesses who here secret Santa is or not; I hope she can cozy up with a cup of coffee and enjoy this tiny little Kansas Sunrise! 

"Kansas Sunrise," Acrylic on canvas (6x8)

Nuthatch on the Lookout

 I love these tiny little birds! It has been said that once these guys are spotted in your yard, snow is soon to follow. I always look forward to seeing them, snow and all.  

"Nuthatch on the Lookout," pastel pencil

This original drawing is 6"x9", drawn on acid free charcoal paper, using pastel pencils. It is available for purchase. Contact me at jen@jelartcreations.com. 

Prints coming soon!

The Stages Of A Painting- Part 5

 Welcome back! In this final stage of our lighthouse tutorial, we're turning the lights on! 

You may have noticed that I haven't posted in a few months. First of all, thank you for your patience, and for checking back with me again! Please enjoy this video as I tell you what I've been up to since my last post, and then I'll walk you through the finishing touches on this painting. 

*(If you are using a smartphone, click "view web version" at the bottom of this page to get the video to appear.)

"Shine Your Light, Cape Hatteras," Acrylic on canvas

More light and color reflection in the water.

Adding more light reflections on top of the wet sand. 

Turning on the light!

Using a ruler to guide my light beam.

Fanning out the light across the canvas, imagining it going out into the sea to guide the ships.

Stars!

Varying the size and brightness of the stars. 

The signature finishes it!

Again, thank you so much for following along. If you would like to go through this tutorial from the beginning, then I have add the links to the other phases in order below. Please leave a comment, or send me an email and let me know how you liked this, and if you would like to see more tutorials in the future. 

Stages of a Painting- Part 1

Stages of a Painting- Part 2

Stages of a Painting- Part 3

Stages of a Painting- Part 4

Please welcome little Daniel, born Sept. 26, 2020!

The Stages Of A Painting- Part 4

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Starting light first.

Then complimentary color. 

Then blue and black if shadows are needed. 

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.

Large shag brush. 

Made with the shag brush. 

Small flat brush.

Shorter grass. 

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.

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.

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.

Stages of a Painting- Part 5

The Stages Of A Painting- Part 3

Thank you for checking back, and thank you for your patience as I was working on Part 3!

Developing the ocean and the sand. 

As you can see, I've done a lot of work on the ocean, and I've begun to lay in the sand for the foreground.

In Part 2 we left off on the ocean, so let's pick up there. We talked about overlapping layers of darks and lights, with the brightest colors being closest to the source of light. That is essentially all I did here. If I didn't like the way it was going, I simply kept adding layers until I liked what I had.

Sky colors reflecting in the water. 

Bigger waves closer to the foreground, and the waves get smaller as they get farther away. 

With ocean water, there is a lot of room to play and experiment, because you can try different brush strokes and colors. If you don't like it, you can paint over it and try something else. It usually works out really well because water, especially ocean water, doesn't follow a specific pattern. In most cases, whatever you do, even if you paint over and area multiple times, it adds texture to the waves.

Last time I briefly described one of the brush stroke techniques I use for oceans. There are actually several different ones that I end up incorporating together. I have broken some of them down for you so you can see how simple they are:

Streak. Best for smooth, calm water. 

Wave. Mellow, slightly wavey water. 

Shark tooth. Choppy water. Bigger versions can be used for larger waves. 

Sloppy Z. This has a variety of uses. It can indicate the directional flow of water. I often use it as a transition between waves, or when the direction of the water suddenly changes. Can also be used with bright colors to create glints and glares in the water. 

Scribble. Also good for transitions, and to depict water flowing toward the viewer from the distance. I use this a lot for sun/moon light reflections as well, only using bright colors. 

Overlapping. Can be used with any wave shape to create the texture of water you want (i.e. angry waves vs. calm waves).

Crisscross. Useful for creating small, choppy waves. 

When it comes to the bigger waves, those are fairly simple as well. You just have to decide what kind of wave you want and how big you want it. There are gentle, rolling waves, like the ones I've put in this painting, there are choppier waves, and then there are the big, impressive swells with all the loud action. There are various other types of waves in different stages of break-over, but the 3 I've listed cover their basic shapes for the most part.

Having an image of the wave in your mind helps. I almost always have at least 2 reference photos on hand of waves that best fit the ones I want in my painting. This helps me get their shape right, as well as the direction of the water swirling around them at their base.

In this painting I only did gentle, rolling waves. I'm not 100% sure I'm happy with them, so there is a chance I may go back later and change them. While I'm deciding on that, I wanted to show you the basics of how to build a wave:

First, I'm going to draw a simple dome shape. The size and shape of the wave depends on if you want a scene that looks more stormy, or more calm. Tall sharp waves will look more like a raging sea. Waves with smother curves will look more relaxed. For this one, we're just going to make a regular wave that doesn't look particularly angry.

I like to also put in a little swell of water under the wave, which kind of gives it a "foot." To do  this I used a "sloppy Z," brush stroke like the one I showed earlier in this post.

Basic shape of the wave.

Next I dragged in my dark blue, always curving up into the wave. You can also start toward the top of the wave and drag your brush down, but you want the brush stroke to follow the curve of the wave and then flow back out into the rest of the water. Darker colors will always be in the base of the wave.

My brush strokes always go in the same direction that the water is flowing, which is toward the peak of the wave. 

Since the wave is most shallow at the top (or peak), that's the area that will let the most light pass through. To achieve that I simply added lighter colors to the top and blended them into the darker colors toward the base.

Water is lighter when it's thinner, and gets darker with density or depth. The top of the wave lets more light through. 

Many waves have a kind of "spine," which is the point where the water suddenly flips into the direction of the wave. For that I used the "shark tooth" brush stroke, mentioned earlier, and made that area darker.

Adding the spine and back of the wave. 

Now that I have the shape of my wave, there are two directions I can go with it.

I can leave it as is and just add in a few splashes at the peak. All I would do for that is dab some white in across the top in a few places (usually not all the way across, space out the splashes a little!). OR...

Adding break-over to the wave.

I could also make this wave spill over into a classic crashing wave. To do this, I start at the very peak, or maybe just slightly behind it, and I pull the white paint over and down at a curve (think of it as giving the wave bangs :). I do either dabbing, or swishing motions with the brush, but always at a curve. Where the wave first breaks over, I make short dabs to indicate, "it's about to..." Then the curves are longer but not reaching the buttom yet, saying, "it is now..." As I get farther toward the end of the wave the curves are smaller and eventually reach the bottom, saying, "it just did."

The break-over gradually reaches the bottom as it goes toward the right.

Where the break-over reaches the bottom, there will be more action there, as the wave churns up the water it's crashing into. I did some swirling motions with my brush here as I was dabbing in the white. I also did another technique where, as I dab, I quickly pull the brush up and slightly out, before lifting it off the canvas. This allowed me to flick a tiny bit of the paint up and out to make look like ocean spray. When working on ocean spray, mist, or splashes, the less paint on the brush the better.

Flicking the paint up as I dab helps create spray or mist.

Next I added in some dabs and smudges of white for some sea foam. I also added some little streaks of sea foam inside the wave, using only the tiny corner of my flat brush.

Think of sea foam as giving the water spots, and then smudge the edges of the spots toward each other. 

Adding some sea foam and highlights.

With a little bit of blending, it all comes together and I have my wave!

A complete wave. 

As far as where to position the waves, the larger waves will always be at least midway out or farther. That is where the water would be deeper. As you get closer to the shore, in shallower water, it cascades into the smaller breaker waves, and then eventually into the thin pools that wash onto the sand.

For our lighthouse painting, I used dark, thin lines to define the ends of the shallow pools. To indicate wet sand underneath, the center of the pools are darker.

I used red or purple to outline the pools washing onto shore. The pools are darker in the middle. 

Water needs highlights and glints bouncing off of it in order to achieve the look of being wet. Loading very small amounts of white to the tip of my brush, I added streaks of white along the edges of the pools. While the paint was still wet, I went back over the streaks and gently brushed the paint straight up. Making sure to stagger this feature throughout the pool, I then went lightly across it again going horizontally (like you're crossing your "T's" over the upward streaks you just made).

Dragging small amounts of paint up (or down), helps give the appearance of light reflecting and/or bouncing off of the water. 

Dabbing and smudging in some sea foam at the ends of the small breaker waves.

Once I have established the breaker waves, and where the water is washing ashore; I am ready to add in some sand.

Incorporating the same colors from the sky into the sand helps to keep the same tone throughout the painting. The sand is just as important in suggesting the time of day (dusk in this case), as the sky is. 

I still want the same colors from the sky to be present in the sand, so I added more white along with a touch of brown. Just like everywhere else, the sand is lighter toward the source of light. As the light fades toward the foreground, the sand gets darker and more muted, with more blue/purple shadow areas. Keeping my brush damp is what helps me blend it all together without the paint drying too fast.

To create hills and slopes, the creases and back side of the slopes are always much darker, with deep shadows. The crest of the slopes are most exposed to the light, and therefore will be much brighter.

Deep shadows suggest that light is being blocked by something else, creating depth and dimension.

Adding bright highlights to the areas that are most exposed to light, helps further define the shape and depth of the slope.

Now I'm ready to go back to where the water is washing ashore. The sand there is wet, and wet sand is darker than dry sand. So I have gone in with blues, purples, and browns to create the look of wet sand. Going slightly beyond where the pools of water are suggests that the water has washed up a little farther, and is now receding back into the ocean.

I will continue to develop the sand a little more, and I may do some more work on the waves. For now I have established where the water has washed ashore, created the lighting I want in the sand, and my slopes are formed and ready for grass reeds.

While it's true that sometimes the foreground ends up covering some of the details in the background; the better the background details are, the better your foreground will look over the top. The details that show through, such as bits of waves or sand in between grass reeds, will give the painting a lot of depth and interest. This is why, as I said in previous posts, I like to paint back-to-front. It makes everything look like it flows smoothly and naturally behind the things in front.

Be sure to check back again for part 4, as I add in the grass reeds and further develop the foreground. We're getting pretty close to a finished painting now!

Thank you again for reading! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, or email me at:

Jen@jelartcreations.com

Stages of a Painting- Part 4