Hello friends! Welcome to my channel. Today i'm taking you with me plein-air painting again.
Today I'm going to share with you how I look for subjects that
might be a bit easier to paint. And generally how to simplify these complex
nature scenes. I find these scenes really challenging myself as well. So keep that in mind,
not every plein-air painting is gonna turn out well. One thing that I look for when I'm out on
plein-air is to find contrasts. In this scene, there's lots of contrast with the bridge and
some grasses. There are these sculptures, the gazebo, contrast of light and dark
here. And there's this little island. So I can find maybe three paintings already in this scene.
In this sketch, I'm starting with the lighter areas, then going in with the middle and darker
values as usual. I did not pay good attention to the values and it ended up being quite a failure.
So here's how I did. Definitely not a painting I would frame on the wall. I think the major problem
here is that everything looks kind of the same. I think this area here is not too
bad and there is some contrast here but I didn't really follow my value study.
So even though I don't have the best painting as a result, it still gave me some learning experience.
I will try and repeat this painting, keeping in mind everything that I learned from plein-air.
So I'm going in with the lighter areas and I will drop some of the shadows in there as well
while the paper is still wet. So that the shadow edges are soft in the areas where
I don't want to attract attention. Pre-wetting the shapes on the right so that all the pigments
that I apply there will have soft edges. For the colors I'm using mostly yellow ochre,
quinacridone sienna, burnt sienna, indigo. For the greens, I'm trying out this new mixture of
phthalo green and quinacridone sienna. It creates a kind of an olive green
color but still more on the cooler side. Anyway, I'm having fun with it.
As you can see, in this composition the bridge is kind of the main point of interest. So I want to
keep most of the darker shadows and contrasts with the light around that
area. And the sharp edges as well. But that doesn't mean that I can't have any other secondary
areas of interest. It's just they won't attract our attention as much.
In this composition I plan to have the viewer enter from the lower left corner,
move toward the corner where there's the little ducky there, and then move on to the bridge.
So it will be like an s-shape path. That's what I'm working toward in this
sketch. An important part of bringing the viewer's attention to the bridge
are these grasses, the strong contrasts, and the sharpness that they create.
Here is an unfortunate thing and I'm sorry about it. I thought the camera was recording
when it wasn't. Essentially, I'm doing the same thing that I did on the trees. I
pre-wet the paper and applied various shades of warmer and cooler darker
green to create an illusion of waves. Here I'm using a washout technique. Basically,
I'm taking a brush that has no pigment in it and it will soak up the pigment from the paper.
I'm also doing some scraping with a credit card to indicate the grasses. Off to more details on
the bridge and the shapes of people. Here I just want to indicate the figures and the viewer can
already guess that. There is no need to be very detailed with the figures.
Pre-wetting the paper again
and filling in the left portion of the water. Adding some more dark areas, dark reflections.
Using the washout technique to indicate the reflection of the figures
and some more ripples on the water. With details, sometimes it's helpful to flip the painting upside
down and look at it that way. You will then see the painting in abstract shapes and understand
what is missing there. Here I figured that I am missing some definition on the left. So
I added some more shadows to the stones and more shadows to the reflection of the tree.
Now using white gouache mixed with a bit of olive green and yellow ochre
to indicate more of the greenery on the surface of the water.
I flipped the painting again because it makes it easier to see where these lines are needed.
Adding some definition to where the duck is. A bit more of those white vegetation on the
surface of the water. Here I'm basically relying on my own sense of composition. There's no way to
say where exactly you need to place these white dots, white strips. You just have to
rely on your inner sense of where you think it's needed. And you can develop this sense by
painting more and more, and also observing master paintings, and playing with composition exercises.
I hope this video inspired you and gave you some encouragement in that not every painting
needs to be a success, especially plein-air. But this experience still adds up to your knowledge
and skill. And that's it from me. Thank you for watching and until next time!