Shadows

One of the hardest things to encourage my students to do is to go dark enough in the shadows.  Using the same paints as in the midtones of the painting, just eliminate most of the water so that the paint is not watered down which lightens the values.

Dark values create the feeling of sunlight.   Practice on the back of some old failed paintings to see how dark you can go with two colors combined.    Be brave!

Flower Paintings

I must admit, many flower paintings leave me impressed by their technical accuracy and technique, but as portraits they don't reach me.  I rarely paint them myself.  But today when I was down at Ocean Point, I rounded a sharp curve and looked at the house I had just painted.  The poppies were close to the road and were set off by the dark silhouette of the house.  It nearly brought tears it was so lovely. I snapped a quick photo and after lunch, set up the easel in my back yard.

Color choices:  Since the poppies were light pink, the foliage was the complementary color of green.  I loved the shape of the house in the background, but I didn't want details of the house to distract from the flowers.  So I used the shape of the house without all of its architectural details.  I also kept it to a neutral gray to highlight the colorful poppies.

I often remind students that you can create a "trail" of values once you have the color and paint on the brush.  I like to make a broken trail of darks near the focal point, leaving the outer edges a neutral midtone.

Happy summer solstice!

Wet-in-Wet

There are many ways to create contrast:   through color, through values,  through sizes of shapes and through edges.  I tried to keep those contrasts in mind while painting this depiction of a tugboat.

Color contrast:  Basically this is a dominantly cool painting   with hints of warm colors. Also  grays
                          and neutrals vs. spots of pure color.

Value contrast:  The biggest value contrast happens around the tug. 

Size contrast:     The white shapes are small while the largest shapes are in the sky.

Edge contrast:    The sky and most of the water was painted wet-into-wet, while the tug and  background trees are smaller, hard edges.


    Try not to just sail into a painting without thinking about these elements.  Once you have made the decisions about how to create contrasts, painting will become much easier. 

Back in Maine

After a long, scary winter, it's good to be back in my safe harbor.  I'm still having a bit of trouble setting up my easel, but was glad to have painted my first painting in eight months. 

This is a sandwich shop called Capers in Boothbay Harbor.  I had to remember that putting down the first wash on white paper, your eyes will be fooled into thinking you've made it dark enough.  So I try to think of putting down a midtone which will dry lighter and form a light value when dry. 

When glazing the secondary washes, make the shapes simple and interesting.  Finally, the darkest shapes with authority so that you won't have to go back into it.  Use lots of paint and very little water.

Good to be back to my blog and to be painting again!