Today I'm going to talk about ripping my painting apart
and why did I do that.
Hello, this is Eric from Cafe Watercolor.
Last week, I did a painting here live on YouTube.
After I'm done with the painting,
I just left it on my easel and for the next couple of days,
I saw the painting and I just thought to myself
that I can do better.
So I decided to rip this painting apart.
This is not the first time I rip apart my painting,
and this is not going to be the last.
Because I don't want to get caught up with a painting
that I'm not really happy with.
When I do a painting, I want it to reflect
the best of my current state right now.
So if I know I could've done better,
I will try to paint the same subject again
before I move on to the next painting,
unless I know it's not a good subject for me to paint.
So by ripping apart the painting I am not happy with,
it got me into the state of mind to restart and refresh.
Now does that mean I wasted my time
because I did a painting that I'm not happy with?
No, no painting is a waste of time,
as long as you learned something from it.
And I certainly did.
I was able to see the problem of the painting.
I figured out which part of the process
I can do differently.
I said it before, failure is a necessary part of learning
as an artist.
We need to learn to embrace it.
The process of my ripped painting is still up
in this channel because many people
is still benefiting from that demo.
So I'm going to keep that video up,
but I did paint it again and I'm much happier with this one.
So I want to share with you the process again.
You can actually see what I do differently this time.
Okay, so let's talk about the process of this painting.
I'm going to speed this up quite a bit
because I already paint through the whole thing real-time
in my last livestream.
So I mainly just want to show you the process of it.
So again, we start off with the drawing.
It's pretty similar.
It's just a couple houses, some trees.
The drawing itself isn't really that complicated.
The tricky part of this painting
is to manage to get the right value
and to make a very nice clean wash in the background,
which you will see in a second.
So wrapping up with the drawing,
erase some of the construction lines.
So we're going to start with our painting.
So I'm premixing the color for the first wash,
the color of the light.
So obviously, the sky and the foreground grass
is actually very, very bright
because it's under the sun.
So I'm wetting the painting with a sponge.
And I start by painting the color of the light.
So the sky and now the foreground grass
and the bright part of the house.
Because I prewetted the painting,
so some of the paint is going to give it
a little bit of bloom, bleed out a little bit,
and that is totally fine.
Again, the first wash is all about the color of the light.
From this point on, every wash that I do
after this wash is going to be darker.
So they are very easily covered.
So you don't need to really worry
about the shapes and stuff,
just painting the color of the light.
Now some part, you do want to leave it white,
but you don't really need to stress too much about it.
So now I am mixing my second wash.
This is going to be quite tricky,
so I'm using a big brush.
Just give it a little bit articulation on the top
and start to paint the whole scene.
It's very easy to get into the trap
to paint too much detail.
Because when you're looking at a photo,
you see those thousands of trees.
And it is quite fascinating to see that in person
because the sense of scale and the sense of detail
is just overwhelming to you.
But when you are doing a painting,
especially a loose painting,
you want to be able to neglect or just merge some
of the detail into big shape.
So that's what I'm trying to do right now.
So while the wash is still wet,
I can come in and give it a little bit of soft detail.
So I can hint a little bit of those evergreen trees
in the background.
But overall, keep that into a single shape.
So I'm connecting the shape into the dark side of the house,
the roof, and other similar value,
other middle value range.
Again, I did a value study for this one,
so I do have a road map in mind.
What I really need to worry about are the color
and some subtle details.
And that is something I do struggle with from time to time
when I switch from value study to color
because I need to worry about more things.
So sometimes I tend to complicate things a little bit more,
a little bit too much, also because I'm using
the bigger paper.
So I tend to try to make a little bit more detail.
But sometimes it's not that necessary.
You just need to keep your focus on the value study,
if your value study is working well.
So now I'm extending the middle value shape down
and start to paint out some of the shadows
that's casting from the house, the trees, whatever.
It is a very interesting lighting scenario
because the background is actually darker
because of the cloud shadow.
And also, evergreen tree by itself
is actually much darker than the grass, let's say.
So you have actually darker background,
and the foreground is actually a lot lighter,
which is something that's a little bit more unusual.
When it comes to landscape painting,
you usually have bright sky, light background,
and then darker middle ground.
But this one is definitely a little bit more tricky.
So I'm painting the tree, which is my third wash,
so I'm going to the dark right now.
So when the dark is in, the light is going to pop out
and the whole scene will look a little bit more finished
because we complete the value range.
So my first attempt of this painting,
I spent a little bit too much time on the background
because I want to get a little bit more subtle detail in.
But I end up doing too much,
so the painting start to look a little bit too busy
and the background start to look less transparent
and not as fresh.
And that's why I did a glaze and just to unify the value.
And that did look better,
but the background end up to be too dark.
So this time, I just really tried to resist the temptation
to paint too much and keep the background
just a little bit lighter.
So it's a little bit more atmospheric,
a little bit more transparent.
So putting the dark for the background house,
connect that to the dark of the trees,
connect as much shape as you can.
That's what makes the watercolor beautiful, the flow of it.
Another thing I did differently
versus my first attempt is that I actually scratched out
a little bit of highlight on the tree.
You can do that when you have a thick enough mixture on top
and before it is completely dry,
you can scratch that off a little bit with your fingernail,
your palette knife, whatever it is.
But what it does is it can give you
just a little bit of the detail and scratch a little bit
of the light back so the tree looks just,
has a little bit more detail this way.
This is a easier way to do it if you just want
a little tiny speck of highlight here and there.
Otherwise, if you need to paint
around every single highlight,
it's going to be very, very difficult.
So again, I'm replacing the white fence
with those darker posts
because those white fence is going to be a pain to paint
and they will be quite distracting
because they're so large.
So now the background, I still do a little bit of glaze,
but I'm really careful not to overdo it.
So I'm not making it a lot darker.
Only the bottom of the mountain,
I'm making then slightly darker,
just so those light on the house will pop out
a little bit more.
But now, I actually add a big cast shadow in the front,
just to hint that there's something else on the side,
even though there's not.
But I do believe this gives a better composition.
It gives more depth and it makes the light feel
a little bit more like a pocket light,
which is a little bit more dramatic.
So the house in the middle is a little bit too big,
but fortunately, it's very light,
so I can just paint some darker value around it
to change the shape to make it a little bit smaller.
I'm just adding a little bit more dark
on the tree on the left,
make the shape look a little bit better.
And here we have it.
I hope you like this painting.
It is not perfect, but I'm definitely happier with this one.
And since I did it twice, I know I did my best.
I have no regret, so again, I hope you like this process.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
What I really want to do in this channel
is to be real.
I produce failed painting all the time,
so don't be discouraged when things are not working out
for you from time to time.
This will happen, especially when you are trying
to do something different and grow as an artist.
Now we can always fall back to do something
we are comfortable with,
but if that's all we do, how do we grow as an artist, right?
So that's it for this week's Tips Tuesday.
If you like this video, please give it a like and subscribe.
If you got a similar experience recently,
share them at the comments section down below
and I will tell you that it's okay.
I'm Eric from Cafe Watercolor, see you next time.