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

The Stages Of A Painting- Part 2

Welcome!

Thanks for checking back. In my last post we left off on the importance of lighting, and how establishing the light source will help guide you through the rest of the painting.

That's where we are going to pick back up in phase 2. Here you will see that I have finished the sky, added a lighthouse, and I have also begun to develop the seawater.

Follow along as I break it all down for you, as I will show you how I achieved the glows from the sky casting upon the side of the lighthouse. I'll also show you a trick I used to make the lighthouse look straight and balanced, and how I have begun to pick up the colors of the sky in the water.

My sky is mostly finished, it flows smoothly behind the lighthouse, and I used some of the same colors from the sky in both the lighthouse and the water to create elements of glow and reflection in the painting. 

For the sky, remember how I had determined my light source (or the position of the sun) to be BELOW the horizon, just after the sun had set?

Well, once you have the light source set in place, the lightest and brightest colors are always going to be closest to the sun. The farther you get away from the sun, the darker and more muted the colors will be. And, the darker your dark colors are, the brighter your light colors will look. This dramatic contrast is what provides the appearance of "light," in any painting!

The sky is mostly finished, with brightest colors closest to where the sun has just set. 

I worked on the transition from bright light to darkest dark first, dragging little hints of each layer into the next, to suggest little glimmers of light trying to hang on as long as possible.

For acrylic paint, the key is to keep working while the paint is wet, but since it dries so fast that can be tricky. You can use an additive to keep the paint open longer (paint thinner type products specifically for acrylic), and I did a tiny bit of that at first. However, the majority of the time, all I do is keep my brush damp! I always have a little spray bottle next to me while I'm painting, and as soon as the paint stops flowing on the canvas the way I want, I give my brush a little spritz of plain water and keep on working. Just damp though! If you get the brush too wet it may cause dripping down the canvas.

After the sky was dry I went in and added some clouds. I will do a special tutorial on clouds in another post, but the biggest thing to remember is that you want your brush strokes to always wisp in an upward direction. If you do downward strokes your clouds will look they are raining or even falling down toward the earth rather than floating up and away.

Little paint on the brush with circular, upward strokes helps clouds to look weightless and puffy. 

Also, I hardly have any paint on the brush at a time. I load a small amount of paint on the very tips of the brush and then drag the paint around on the canvas until it runs out. This leaves the ends of my brush strokes looking frayed and somewhat transparent, making the clouds look light and airy...like they're floating!

I like to use a round brush for this, and I especially like brushes with shaggy (or irregular) ends for clouds because they do the wispy work for me.

The shagged bristles make this brush perfect for wispy clouds! 

This brush is great for circular strokes, smudging, and blending. 

Again, you want to remember that the lightest and brightest colors are closest to the sun, even with clouds! So in this painting, you'll see that the ends of the clouds that are closest to the area where the sun has set are brighter. I used more whites and yellows on the underside of those clouds. As the clouds get farther away from the light they transition from pinks and reds to darker purples. The tops of the clouds are darker as well, which helps give them shape and dimension.

If you're trying clouds for the first time, OR if you have struggled with clouds before, start with 1 or 2 little cloud puffs at a time and stagger them a bit. I always get up and walk away from my canvas every now and then. Even if it's just a second or two; when I come back to it my eyes are refreshed and I see it differently.

Looking at it from a distance also helps with where to place each cloud. Perspectively, clouds that are closer to the viewer are going to be larger and farther toward the top of the canvas. Smaller clouds will appear farther off in the distance, and the farther away they are the less detailed they need to be.

Moving on to the lighthouse.

Man-made structures in painting can pose a lot of challenges, because there are more architectural aspects to think about. In a regular landscape, NOTHING is straight in nature (or at least very few things are)! So, my grass doesn't have to be straight, my tree trunks don't have to be straight, and even animals don't need to have perfectly straight lines for the most part. With a building, however, not only does it have to look straight, it also has to look balanced; like it won't fall over (unless you're painting the leaning tower of Pisa).

So, especially when we're talking about a lighthouse, a tall, straight, pole-like structure...it needs to look straight and well balanced. A simple trick I used to achieve this was the use of a weighted string, which I lightly tacked to the back of the canvas with a thumb tack. My string was weighted with a key chain, but you could use just about anything.

A weighted string hung from the back of the canvas is a great guide toward making a structure look straight and balanced.

As I let the string hang straight down my canvas, I made faint dash marks down what would be the center of my lighthouse. This helped me make sure my lighthouse is pointing straight up toward the sky and avoid it leaning too far one way or the other.

Next, I swung the string to one side until I liked the angle. Holding the string there from the bottom, I did another dash line to establish the side of the lighthouse; using the string as my guide to keep my angle straight. I swung the string over to the other side and did the same thing, making sure both sides looked about the same distance from the center line.

Getting straight, even angles. 

From here I carefully added the the features of the top and bottom of the lighthouse, and filled the whole thing in with dark blue (the same blue I used in the blues and purples of the sky).

Blue is a cool color, ideal for use in shadows.

The same techniques I used to create the transitions in the sky were used to give the lighthouse dimension.

I added a stripe of red down the right side, and then I went over the whole thing with white. Just like I did with the sky, I kept my brush damp and had very little paint on the brush at a time. This allowed each layer of red or white to be slightly transparent enough to pick up the blue underneath (the blue is important for the shadows), while also blending together to get the pinks. Once I had it blended the way I wanted, I added a blue stripe down the center and blended that in as well.

The red under the white is what creates the pink "glow" from the sky. 

The body of the lighthouse is mostly a cylinder shape, and in this case, the center of it is farthest from the light. Therefore, the rounded sides of the lighthouse will pick up some hints of light, whereas the back of the lighthouse is deepest in shadow.

The deepest shadow is at the center, OR back of the lighthouse.

For the features at the top of the lighthouse, since the viewpoint is from the bottom looking up, each platform has a slight up-curve (very slight) to it, to indicate the roundness of the structure. For instance, if you take an empty toilet paper/paper towel roll and look up the side of it from the bottom, the top will look rounded instead of flat across. Same concept here.

Now to add the black stripes. Again, the structure is a round structure, so the stripes will also suggest going around, like a ribbon. They are subtly rounded and then come to a fine point up the side, hinting that the stripe continues beyond what the eye can see.

Lighthouse mostly finished. 

At this point, my lighthouse is a prominent feature of my painting. I can always go back to it and add more little highlights later, but for the most part it is done for now. It looks balanced, and I have successfully suggested an evening glow.

It's time to start developing the sea, and again, I'm going to keep using the same colors from the sky.

First I will pull in dark blues from the sides and let the paint run out as it reaches toward the middle, where the light is. You can add the light colors first, but I feel like they get lost once you start adding in the dark, so I prefer to start with my darks.

Next I'll pull in some red and blend it in with the blue to make a dark purple. Staggering the lines and making them a little wavy helps to suggest the natural flow of water.

Starting with the dark colors will help keep the highlights from getting lost.

Ocean water ebbs, flows and swirls at random, in no particular pattern. Starting the waves in different places and making them different shapes helps mimic this. 

Next I'm going to lightly add in my whites and yellows toward the middle, where the water is picking up the remnants of sunlight.

Adding in highlights from the light in the sky. 

Rather than using straight lines, I'm making criss-cross like strokes with my brush to mimic choppy ocean water. I exaggerated this in one of the photos below so you can see the idea. I will do this over and over, doing lots of layers of darks and lights overlapping each other until I am happy with something that looks like an ocean.

Exaggerated criss-cross brush strokes. This is how I create the texture of little breaker waves. 

Same thing as with the sky, the brightest highlights will be closest to the source of light, and everything gets darker as it gets farther out. Also, the waves will be bigger, with bigger and wider brush strokes, as you get closer to the viewer (toward the bottom of the canvas). Likewise, they will get smaller, with thinner and shorter brush strokes as they go farther off into the distance.

Developing the waves and reflecting the colors of the sky. 

Thanks for reading!

Stay tuned for my next post! In Part 3, I will go into more detail about the water, and you'll start seeing me add in the foreground and tie everything together.

Please let me know how you are liking these tutorials, and feel free to ask questions if you have them. You can either leave a comment below, OR email me at: Jen@jelartcreations.com


Stages of a Painting- Part 3

The Stages Of A Painting- Part 1

As people may be getting some cabin fever over the coronavirus closures and quarantines; I thought it might be nice to share some of my painting processes with you. Since I just started a new piece, what a perfect opportunity to show you the stages I go through from start to finish!

While there may be slight differences depending on which paint medium I'm using (i.e. oil vs. acrylic), for the most part I use the same process on every single painting. So, if you're interested, keep reading, and make sure to check back every couple of days to follow this painting's progress. Also, you can follow this site by clicking on the "Follow" link on the right side of the page.

The Skeleton Stage:

OK, let's get into it. This painting is in what I call the "skeleton" stage. It doesn't look like much yet, but all of the key elements of the composition are mapped out on the canvas. It's very basic, without much detail, and it is how I make sure everything is where I want it. In this stage I can make adjustments as needed. I could change the shape or size of the jetty on the left, for instance, OR I could even change where the  horizon line is if I wanted. For now, everything is pretty much laid out where I want it.

From here, you may notice that I have begun to develop the sky. The very first thing I always do on every piece of art is decide where the light is coming from! In my opinion, it is the most important element, because it helps you to determine where your lights and shadows are. Lighting is a big part of creating things like  atmosphere, depth, and even tone (or the emotion you want to evoke from the viewer). From this point on, everything else I do with this painting will be guided by where the lights and shadows go.

While there is no "wrong," way to do art, I also prefer to paint from background-to-foreground, which is another reason why I am developing the sky first. If you have ever painted before, or even tried to color something with colored pencil or crayon, you may recall an annoying "halo," or outline around your subject that was not intended. Painting the background first, rather than trying to carefully fill it in around the subject afterwards, helps to avoid that halo effect. This makes your sky look like it is naturally flowing behind everything in the foreground without hindrance.

In this painting, the sun has just gone down, leaving only a remnant of light, mostly there in the middle. Since there is no direct sunlight shinning on anything, most of the foreground is actually going to be in shadows, with only hints or glows of light here and there. Because I have a good understanding of what light does when it shines on objects at different angles, this helps me know where the lights and shadows go, but only if I have established where the light source is coming from.

At Home Lighting Study:

Something you can do at home to study the effects of light on objects is to get a flashlight, and object (any object), and find a table or plain surface. You'll want to be in a room where you can control the light, so preferably away from a window. Set your object on the table, turn out the lights, and turn on your flashlight. Now, simply move your flashlight around the object to see where the light hits, and where the shadows are cast as a result. Change the angle of the flashlight a few times to see how it changes the effects.

Light source shinning almost directly above subject. 

Light source shinning from a lower angle, coming from the left. This would be similar to what you would see early to mid morning. OR, if you flip it around to put the light on the right, that would be more like early to mid evening, but not yet sunset hour. 

Light source shinning from below the "horizon," or just after the sun has gone down. This is close to the lighting/time of day I have chosen for this particular painting. 

In a landscape or seascape painting, the flashlight represents the sun. A sundial pretty much works the same way, just on a much larger scale.

Now that you're thinking about lighting, next time you're outside, take note of what time of day it is. How high in the sky is the sun? Then look around and see where the light hits different things, and where their subsequent shadows are. Watching a sunset or sunrise is a great time to do this, because the lights and shadows are so beautifully contrasted!

So by all means get outside and observe! If you find yourself suddenly seeing paintings everywhere, you may discover an inner artist waiting to come out!

Thanks for reading, and check back again to see how the lights and shadows develop in the next stage of this painting.

Many blessings to you, and stay healthy and kind!




Questions? Email me at: Jen@jelartcreations.com

Stages of a Painting- Part 2