Hi, this is Eric from Café Watercolor.
And welcome to another quickie video and let's just jump into it.
So this painting is based on a photo that I took earlier this year at the end of the
winter when I drove to work.
It's just another cloudy, foggy morning was a wet road, very typical morning scenery in
the Pacific Northwest during the winter, but that also makes a beautiful subject to paint.
And this will also be one of the few painting that I actually use...
the masking flew at because I want a lot of big clean washes so I don't have to paint
around those tiny shapes when I paint.
So as you can see, when I started my first wash, I can just paint those shape over and
knowing that those masking fluid will do the job of preserving those tiny little highlights there
So the first wash basically just really clean wash from light to dark and then light to
dark again the ground.
And then after it's dry I start the second wash.
Second wash is basically the background, the background trees and it's actually very fun
when you start to look at it sped up because you see how the water flow in, how they've
resolved themselves when they dry.
So the huge thing of this painting is wet on wet.
So the way to create this sort of depths and the distance in a misty distance is to make
sure you pre-wet the area and then you put the paint into the wet area so they were spread out
the water would run and it will just create this beautiful misty feeling.
And as it get to the foreground you started darken them.
And then when that is dry, I start to work on the foreground trees and they are darker
and it's still one big shape.
You can see that I pay quite a bit of attention on the silhouette of the tree because it's
a foggy day and everything sort of just covered by the atmosphere.
But what's really important is for people to recognize what this is, is the silhouette.
So you can see I pay quite a bit of attention on the silhouette of the tree.
And just because I paint loosely doesn't mean I don't put any care into the shape of the
leaves of the tree and stuff.
And I think that attention to the brushwork is what really sets some great artists apart,
those very delicate brushwork that you can tell that this artist is very experience and
they put in a lot of care into those and those brushstroke has character into them.
And I just very quickly before or the dark paints are dry, just started to wet the surface
of where to reflection will be and it started dropping those dark paints to make the reflections.
And as you can see I just kind of let it go and that the watercolor do its work.
And that's what always excites me when I paint watercolor is because I can never know what
the end product is going to look like.
I could have an idea how it's going to look because I'm more or less familiar with the
medium itself.
But to predict exactly how it will look is pretty much impossible because there's a lot
of factors and that can frustrate a lot of people because a lot of people want this control
over watercolor and they want it to behave exactly what they want, which is not the right
medium for you if that is what you're expecting because the strengths of watercolor is this
freshness and this liveliness and that is something that you need to embrace.
So let it flow that it bleed and let it paint itself for you and all watercolor need is
some good guidance that you provide.
Dropping the headlight and the taillight with gouache while they are still wet so it gives
this soft glow and the mist, which is what you see when it's a misty foggy day because
the light diffuse in the atmosphere and as you can see when I paint the left trees, I
bring those value into the car in the left because that's what brings the painting together.
Now I paint the reflection of the tail light and the headlight on the ground.
And I add some more misty background trees on the left because the value transition is
a little bit too abrupt.
So making a back ground tree on the left a little bit darker makes the transition a little
bit more natural.
So this is my second quickie video and if you have any question about painting or just
me in general, feel free to leave to common.
And I will try to answer that in the next quick video if I can.
And as I mentioned in my other video, my monthly video, will take a pause on August because
I'm preparing my online course, but I'll still put out some quickie videos in between for
you.
And here's the finished painting.
It's a very simple but hopefully effective misty morning painting in the Pacific Northwest.
I hope you enjoyed that and I will see you next time.