Hi, this is Eric from Cafe Watercolor,
and welcome to another painting demo.
So today, I want to show you the process
of this painting, of a barn with some cows.
So you might have seen this painting in my last video
when I was introducing my video setup.
That was the painting that was on the easel.
So the photo was taken a few months ago during the summer
on a trip to strawberry picking.
So the thing about this photo reference
is that I actually Photoshopped some elements
onto the photo.
The original photo just has the barn and the grass field.
But during the trip, I actually saw some cows
on the other side of the road, so I want to incorporate that
into my painting, so I took the cows
from the other photo that I took and put them
in this photo, and I also replaced the sky very quickly
with Photoshop so that resulted in this reference image
that I have.
It is your painting, so you can add and take away
whatever you want to serve your own painting.
Definitely don't stuck on your reference image
and develop your own vision for your own painting.
So the drawing is relatively simple.
There is just a barn, some trees, and the grass field.
The cows are a little bit more complicated,
but the main thing you want to focus on
is the scale and the position.
While this is not a very perspective-heavy painting,
you need to make sure that the scale of the cow
and the position is relatively correct.
So I did a value study for this specific painting
just to make sure the value grouping
and the composition looks good.
Though I am preparing for the first wash,
I start to mix the blue sky
and some slightly darker areas of the cloud.
It's a sunny day, so I want that nice blue sky
and white clouds.
So I just take a mop brush and some clean water
and I pre-wet most part of the painting
because I want to have nice wet-on-wet for the sky.
So as you can see, it's quite a bit of shing,
that means that the paper is pretty wet.
So I just give the cow a little bit of the warm light,
and I also start to give some light values,
some color of the light for the barn
and the trees.
And when you do some wet onto wet for the first wash
like these, don't be afraid to use a little bit
more intense color.
If it looks just right, chances are when it's dry,
it's going to become very, very light,
lighter than you want it to be,
so make the color just a little bit more intense
so it compensates the fade when it dries.
And as you can see, I finished the sky
very, very quickly while it is still wet.
I leave out some white and because I do this
wet onto wet, you see some nice, soft edges
for the white clouds.
Now there are some hard edges here and there,
but it doesn't really affect the whole composition
and value, so even if you have a little bit of hard edges
during your first wash, when you're painting the sky,
it is okay.
There are times that you see some hard edges
and some hard separation between the clouds
and the sky in real life anyways.
So I just continue and start to paint the grass.
We're referencing back to the value study,
we just painted the first wash which is the light value.
Now it's pretty much dry, so we can start to work
on our middle value, which is the second layer
of the value study.
Now this is going to be the majority
of the painting, it's going to be
the major shape of our painting.
So because we're creating a big shape in this wash,
so I usually try to start with something
a little bit easier, like trees and some organic shapes.
That way, it will kind of put my mind into ease
because painting trees and other organic shapes like these,
they are a little bit more abstract
so they are more forgiving.
And while painting this wash, I will spray a little bit
of water, just to keep the wash moist longer,
so that I can have a little bit more time
and connect that shape.
And I'll try to change the color in between
wet onto wet so that it feels, it's more rich,
has more variety even though the shape itself
is just a single shape.
So even though they're all trees, they're all greens,
you can have different variety of warm and cool greens
to play off each other so that it doesn't feel dead,
it doesn't feel stiff.
This is very important, especially when you are painting
a big shape that's dominated by a single color,
so in this case, green.
I had a video about how to mix different variety of greens,
definitely go check it out if you haven't watched that one.
So continue the tree and I actually connect that
to the grass field.
And while the tree is still wet,
I try to use this time to do a little bit
of wet onto wet, I add some soft, dark shapes
within the trees so that that adds
a little bit more volume to the trees,
so the tree looks like it's lit by the sun,
it has a little bit more dimensionality to them,
so they feel less like a flat shape,
but more like an actual three-dimensional structure.
And again, we continue down to the grass.
And we try to carefully paint around the cow,
especially the top part of the cow
where it gets a little bit more sun,
so we try to wrap up the grass field.
I make the green just a little bit darker
as we wrap up this shape,
so we see the subtle gradation from distant
to the foreground.
This subtle value change really pushes the depths
and also adds the volume to the grass,
and while it is still wet, same thing as the tree
in the background, I add a little bit darker shapes
within the wet area and because they're mostly soft shapes,
you just feel like there's some volumes
and a little bit of three dimensionality to them
and also splashes some water to create some textures.
And these are the fun part.
You can play around with this when they are still
nice and moist.
Now I come back to the barn and I start to paint the roof.
The roof is a little bit red, so I have
some Burnt Sienna, add a little bit of red
just to make it a little bit more vibrant.
The background tree is mostly dry,
so you don't really need to worry about,
the color will bleed into that.
So I also start to paint the siding of the barn
and connect that to the roof,
so even if the colors start to blending,
with each other a little bit,
as long as you don't have too much water
in your mixture on your brush, you should be okay.
And again, a little bit of wet onto wet.
Some variety of warm and cool so that it feels rich,
it has a little bit more variety
instead of just a flat color.
And there are also some houses and barns in the distance
and we can suggest them very, very easily
with a little bit of the roof structures
and some light and so on.
So now the grass is mostly dry.
We can start to paint the cow.
Now it's very important to know that the white part
of the cow can still be middle value
if they are not lit by the sun.
So when you look at your reference,
really squint your eyes in comparing the value
that you're looking at against something
that's a lot lighter, like a cloud in the sky
or some white highlight.
And when you do that, you will have a better idea
what value is the thing that you're looking at
because the color can be very deceiving.
So I leave out a little bit of the light
because I know those are the highlight,
but for the rest of the cow, I just paint
a middle value because we can come back in
and paint some darks to really separate
the black and the white spot on the cow.
So we finished the second wash
and it looks good and all we need to do now
is to add a little bit of the dark here and there
to separate the shapes and further define the structures.
So underneath the trees, some dark areas
and some shadows underneath the roof line.
And the dark on the side of the barn.
Leave out a little bit of the light for the trees
to pop out underneath the roof.
These are not big shapes, these are the details
but when you add those, everything starts
to look more defined and more finished.
And sometimes, you don't need much,
you just need a few brushstrokes and a few small shapes,
and that's all you really need.
And if it looks believable and if the viewers
can identify what you're painting,
then you have a nice, loose painting.
So you might notice that the trees that I have
in my painting are a little bit lighter
than the photo, and that's because they are
in the distance, so I try to make them
just a little bit lighter to create
a little bit more depth.
If I make those trees too dark,
they can try to pop in front of it
and then it will start competing with the cow
and everything else.
So sometimes you do need to make your own judgment
to follow the photo or not.
So now I'm going to zoom in and start
to paint and finish the cows.
So I'm using neutral tints,
something very dark, and start to paint the dark spot
of the cow.
And I tried to keep them simple,
a little bit of softening when it comes to the edges
of those dark spots if they are going
into the middle value and the light side.
Soften them a little bit,
and really pay attention to the shape
that you're painting.
What shape will define the cow the most?
The flat back and the flat long neck,
and the shape of the mouth,
these are all the visual languages
that you need to pay attention to.
So they are visual languages,
but that doesn't mean you start to paint all of the details.
The cow in the front is actually quite abstract,
you don't really know where the face is,
you don't really know where the head is,
you just see like a shape kind of a cylindrical shape
with a flat top, and a couple legs and that's it,
but it reads like a cow.
It's grazing so maybe the head is hidden
behind the legs, but as long as you see those patterns
and the shapes, they look like cows.
Here is the finished painting,
I hope you enjoyed this painting demo
and this painting.
It's a simple painting but I really like
how it turns out and really speaks to me actually.
This is Eric from Cafe Watercolor,
hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are.
I will see you again next time.