(light mic)
Hi, this is Eric from Cafe Watercolor
and welcome to another painting demo.
Today I want to share with you the process
of this painting of a misty morning.
I forgot to record the drawing part,
so this is why I start with painting directly.
That being said, the drawing of this painting
is very, very important because the amount
of the vehicle, the perspective of the street.
I also put some masking fluids on the headlight
of the bus and the taillight of the car
so that I can keep those as bright as possible
while I'm doing large washes.
Because area like those are really too small
for me to try to paint around all of that.
And it is far more important to have a big clean wash.
I start off with the sky.
And you might notice the sky seems to be
a little bit dark.
But because we want to have the headlight
and the taillight of the car be the lightest part
of the painting,
the sky actually needs to be just a little bit darker
than those so that we can differentiate the values.
Something like the sky in this picture
can seem to be very bright,
but we need to think about the whole value scale
in terms of the painting,
what's the lightest part of the painting
and what is the darkest part
and what is in between.
I did an overall big wash of the sky
all the way to the bottom,
and now before it is completely dry,
I start to paint the yellow school bus.
Spray a little bit of water while you do it
if you want to maintain the moisture of the painting.
I paint the color of the light
and I also added another school bus behind
the main school bus on the left,
so I did change the painting around just a little bit.
And I start to paint the background tree.
And because the background is still a little bit moist,
you got some nice soft edges.
If it's dry already, you probably need to re-wet
the paper with clean water,
which is something that I did on the left of the painting.
This picture was taken a few weeks ago
when I dropped my son off at his middle school.
A misty morning usually gives me a very quiet
and peaceful feeling,
but when it is time for school drop-off,
there it's actually quite busy.
There's quite a few cars and then students
coming out from the cars, walking into the school.
So I find that contrast quite interesting,
and plus, I really like the atmosphere of the scenery,
so I took a photo and decided to paint it.
I paint the lit up billboard on the right.
I keep that as saturated as I can,
and I wet the surroundings
so the red color is spread out naturally
so that I create the glow.
Now I add another layer of the tree on the right.
We started to pull things out
from the misty foggy atmosphere and create a lot of depth.
This painting may look easy,
but you really have to observe the stage of the wetness
of your painting and work with the watercolor.
I want the tree to look a little bit soft.
They are still in the mist,
but they are a little bit closer,
so the shape looks a little bit more defined.
And this effect is achieved by painting
somewhat of a thick mixture on a damp paper.
As the paper is drying,
you start to adjust your mixture.
So when it's still very, very wet,
the shapes are very soft and almost into a gradation.
Now, when the wet turns to moist,
you want to make your mixture just a little bit thicker
and paint that background trees
so that they look softer,
but you can start to make some shape out of it.
Now, onto the damp stage,
the paper is dry a little bit more,
so you want to have thicker mixture to paint on it
so that you can start to define more shapes
and they still look a little bit soft,
looks like they're within the atmosphere.
But you can start to define the shape of the tree
and give it some more volumes as you paint it.
And the damp stage is quite tricky
because if you don't have thick enough mixture,
it can create cauliflower edges.
Work with watercolor, observe the stage of wetness it is in,
and to mix the mixture accordingly.
I connect the tree on the left
to the windshield of the bus.
Connecting shapes is still very, very important in this
and it's actually even more important when you're doing
a misty foggy scenery.
Now I start to paint the second layer
of the school bus.
I start to make things just a little bit darker
and start to paint the structure of the school bus.
And because I had the masking fluid on the headlight,
I don't need to worry about painting around those.
So a little bit of masking fluid definitely make
my job a little bit easier.
The goal of this painting is to paint the atmosphere
by establishing the depths and different hard
and soft edges.
To make all the washes as clean as possible
is very, very important.
Even though the subject looks quite simple,
just a couple cars and trees and there's not a lot
of colors involved aside from the red light
and the yellow school bus,
the most difficult part of this painting
is to keep everything looking very, very clean
but do a lot of wet onto wet
because you want that softness in the background.
This is definitely not the first time I painted
a misty scenery.
One of my highest viewing YouTube video
is a painting that I did a couple years ago.
I was painting a misty morning
with a little bit of rain.
During that time, I approached the painting
in a much more direct way
and I got the result a lot faster.
And that did work, but now,
I want my painting to look a little bit more refined.
I want to create more volume in the atmosphere,
if you know what I mean.
I want those headlight and taillight to really glow
in the misty atmosphere
instead of just painting those
with a white gouache or red gouache at the end
of the painting.
And there's nothing wrong working like that,
but I think as I mature as an artist,
I want something a little bit different now.
I added two figures on the right,
just to add a little bit more sense of movement
and also some scale reference.
Even though there is no figure in the reference photo,
but when I was there, I do see students came out
of the car and walk into the school,
so I just want to add a little bit more story
in this painting.
Now I remove the masking fluid,
and as you can see, how clean those preserved highlight are.
So I definitely prefer this look more than painting
with a white gouache at the end.
Again, nothing wrong with using white gouache.
This is just what I prefer.
Now I'm starting to get into the dark value,
and these shapes are much more defined as well.
And before that shape is dry,
I use a clean damp brush and lift some of the paint
so that creates a little bit of glow
around the headlight.
And as you can see, as soon as I put in the dark value
and hard edges, things starting to coming out
from the atmosphere.
And this is the stage that when a painting
starting to come together.
And you need quite a bit of faith before this stage
because everything still looks really soft
and washed out.
But if you have a solid plan for your painting
and you have confidence that you are able to execute it,
you should have a little bit of faith to know
that it's going to end up looking good.
And that is something that I tell my students
is that when you are looking at a reference image
and you have the desire to paint it,
then see if you can come up with a plan to paint it.
And evaluate if you have the ability
to execute that plan.
If the answer is yes, then you should go for it.
But if you cannot come up with a plan
or if you don't have the confidence
that you can execute the plan that you think of,
then maybe put it to the side for now
and come back to it later when you are more confident
with your skill level.
I'm finished with the school bus in the front
and now I'm painting the school bus in the back,
just a little bit of indications,
and now working on the rest of the cars.
The car on the right,
painting the door that is open,
and I want to give the taillight
a little bit of the glow as well.
I'm painted some red around the taillight
and then I paint the rest of the car
and have that red connect and merge with the shape.
Now adding the dark to the car on the right,
the car start to pops out and is a lot more forward.
Now the road is a little bit too light,
so I would do a glaze on it.
But right now, I'm just trying to finish the figure and car,
get those elements in there.
Get rid of a little bit of the paint
'cause I want to keep it nice and light.
So we get that nice red glow in the back.
And I add some more dark as needed.
Because when it's dry,
it's going to dry a little bit lighter,
so add some more paint as needed.
Now I am mixing a much darker gray,
pretty much into the middle value,
and give the road an overall glaze,
just to make it darker.
And as soon as we paint that road darker,
the light, the headlight and the taillight,
start to pops out a lot more.
And be sure to use a brush that's a little bit bigger
so that it can soak up a lot more paint and water
so you don't have to reload your brush consistently.
Because when you want a big coverage like this,
you want a bigger brush and you want to reload less often.
Painting some dry leaves on the side,
add a little bit more textures.
Paint some directional lines,
just to add a little bit more textures on the road.
And now, looking at the painting,
I want to make the school bus in the left
has a little bit more definition and structure,
so I mix a slightly darker yellow
and start to give it some more structures.
Give it a little bit more different values
and different planes so that it looks three-dimensional.
And I give it another glaze for the road
because it dries a little bit too light
and I want it to be just a little bit darker.
And again, that takes a little bit of courage
because it was looking really clean,
and whenever you are doing another glaze,
there's always a risk that it's going to turn
a little bit more dirty.
But I'm glad I made that decision
because that makes the light pop out a lot more.
And looking at the billboard on the right,
I feel that the light on the billboard is not bright enough.
And that's mostly due to the trees on the right
might not be dark enough for that light to pop out.
So I re-wet the background and the trees on the side again
so I can have some nice wet onto wet darkness
on the right and the left.
I paint some more dark on the right
and also on the left.
That actually makes the tree a little bit more prominent,
so the middle ground trees and the background trees
start to separate just a little bit more.
And that also allow me to give the tree
a tiny little bit of textures
instead of just a flat color.
Because even though looking at the photo,
it is a very flat color,
but we can still try to add a little bit of wet onto wet
texture on the trees so that it looks
and feel a little bit more alive.
Now that we paint the tree on the right darker,
we can start to feel the red light
on the billboard is brighter.
Now, it's never going to be as bright as the photo,
especially on a computer screen,
because the computer screen itself is a light source.
So it is very, very easy for a computer screen
to create that sense of light.
But in the painting, because we are trying
to preserve the light,
and the lightest part of the painting is actually
just the white of the paper,
so it's very difficult to achieve
the same level of brightness.
So we can only try to push that contrast
as much as possible without losing the depth.
Adding some more dark to the car on the right
and a little bit more detail and we are finished.
Thank you so much for watching this video.
When I showed this painting to my son,
he immediately realized where I'm painting
because that's where he goes to school every day.
So I think it's always fun to be able to capture something
as you can find every day,
but in a very special way.
This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S.,
and I'm really grateful for all of your support
and encouragement throughout the year
and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving
if you are in the U.S.
Hope you are able to see your loved ones
and spend some time together.
This is Eric from Cafe Watercolor.
I will see you guys next time.