- Hello, everyone.
I hope you're doing well.
A few months ago, I found a giant canvas in my basement,
and ever since then, I've sort of been staring at it
and really just wanting to paint on it, trying to figure out
what I wanted to paint, build up the courage to do so.
So today, we're gonna do just that and tackle this canvas.
(smooth music)
First, I'm gonna just clean off my old pallet, though,
because I didn't do that with my last painting.
Now, the next part of the process
is called toning your canvas.
This is completely optional.
I just do this because
it's a personal preference.
But basically, you just cover your canvas
with a diluted layer of whatever color you want.
I used burnt sienna.
And it helps me to judge color better.
Good morning!
It is the next day, and last night I blocked in
a little bit of stuff, very minimally.
As you can see, I just defined the bottom
of where the wave will be.
And I think I will leave the blocking in at that
and start going in with color today.
So yeah, that should be fun.
Let's just see where the day takes us.
(upbeat music)
So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about the process
that went into this and what I'm painting in a second.
But before I jump into that,
I just want to say that I'm not a tutorial channel.
That's just not my cup of tea.
I will never be a tutorial channel.
However, I do like to show you my process,
and do it in a relaxing, informal way that feels like
you can sort of hang out with me.
So what I'm painting here is water.
And I really, really love water,
because it just makes me feel so at peace.
And I feel like when we want a break,
or we just want a vacation, it's very common
to go to an ocean, or a lake, or a river,
and just sort of relax and unplug.
So if I can bring that to people on a canvas,
that just fills my heart with so much joy, you know?
Another thing I really love about water is,
no wave is ever the same, and each wave and each ripple
reflects color differently depending on the time of day,
and depending on the wind, the waves are a different size,
and that's what makes water so fascinating.
It seems so simple, but there's so much actually to it.
(relaxing music)
Now that we had our little coffee break, let's continue.
Now, I actually started this painting
a little differently than normal.
You saw me working on the foreground first, which is so
unusual, because I usually tackle the background.
But for some reason, when I saw the shadow under
that sea foam earlier, I just felt like I needed
to block that in first.
So I just kind of followed my gut and went with it.
Sometimes that just feels good.
So once I did that and blocked everything in,
I moved to the middle ground, and this giant blue chunk here
will eventually be sea foam.
And this was one of the more challenging parts
of the painting, was this sea foam section here,
and then the section above it.
So right now, I'm just sort of doing the darker parts
of the water ripples, but the sunset portion here is,
like, a lot different in color compared to the foreground.
So you can see I'm eyeing the canvas.
This is the awkward stage now.
I have to contemplate what to do next.
And that's always the fun part, you know?
It's not quite looking like anything yet.
Sometimes you contemplate giving up,
but then you think ahead and you think about
how rewarding it will be to finish.
So that's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna push through.
(smooth music)
One reason why I really, really loved this painting
was because it gave me the time
and space to just think about life.
Think about, you know, my bucket list, travel places,
other things I want to paint in the future.
I got to binge Atypical on Netflix
and listen to good music.
It was a good time.
And I just, I really enjoy that sometimes,
just feeling like I'm in another world while I create.
Now, you can see throughout this video,
my outfit changes a lot.
And each outfit is probably a different day,
because this painting took so long to make.
And actually, at the end of the video,
I will share with you how long it took.
I think it's really cool with oil paint that
it takes forever to dry, because it's very forgiving
and you can blend so beautifully with it.
I just, I love that so much.
So some days, you know, I'd paint a couple layers
in one area and then wait a day or two for that area
to dry a little more and then I'd come back to it and layer.
Now, I did not add any sort of things to my paint
to make it dry faster after I did the under layer,
so everything you're seeing here is just straight oil paint.
There's, like, nothing really added to it.
There are some areas where I added walnut oil,
but that's pretty much it.
(peaceful music)
Now, something I really loved about this painting here
was it taught me a lot about light and color.
I was very intentional about trying to color match
as best I could.
So I took my time to really mix colors in advance, and...
I guess, going into this painting, I just assumed
that the sea foam would just be so bright and white,
but in reality, this painting is actually darker and moodier
because it's a sunset, and I think that's just so cool
that our eyes can sort of register something
as super bright, but in reality,
it's just, the lighting is different,
and it adds a unique element of contrast,
even though the colors are dark.
Anyway, I really enjoyed just pulling color
from other places, because they repeat a lot,
and conveying water.
This is definitely one of the hardest paintings
I've ever done, but it has made me feel so happy
to have done it.
(upbeat music)
Well, here's the finished painting.
I would say this probably took between 50 to 60 hours.
Maybe more than that, actually.
But it was so liberating to just do
a giant painting like this.
This is kind of stuff I used to do, like, all the time,
these huge paintings, and I really enjoyed it.
But with YouTube and everything, it's not always feasible
to do something this size every week.
That's a lot.
I do want to say that I hope to do more stuff like this
in the future, maybe on a smaller scale.
And I think my channel is gonna start changing directions
a little bit.
I want to do what makes me feel very creatively fulfilled,
and yeah, I'm just gonna start doing that,
and I'm excited for it.
I hope you enjoyed this and felt like you could relax
at the beach or on a lake or something
as you were watching this come to life.
Anyway, thank you so much for watching.
If you are new, feel free to subscribe
to join the art family.
We would love to have you.
And that's it, yeah! Take care.
See you next time. Bye!
(smooth music)