[nature sounds]
Hello, my name is Logan Sauer. I'm an intern here at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.
I'm currently at the pond right across from our visitor center.
Today, I'm going to be giving you step by step instructions on how to paint a wetland sunset.
Okay, so before we get started what you'll want to do is line whatever
surface you're going to be working on with paper or plastic.
You're going to need a blank canvas. This is a 12 by 16 canvas, you can buy any size you want
and adjust the proportions as needed or you can use paper.
For paint you're going to want blue paint red paint, yellow paint, black paint and white paint.
You'll need a couple paper towels for drying off your brushes,
a plastic dish for mixing your paints,
a cup of water for washing your brushes
and for brushes, I don't want to be too particular, just find whatever you can
but for today I'm going to be using a large square paintbrush, a small square paintbrush, a round tip
paintbrush and then a fine tip paintbrush.
Okay, to start off I have divided my canvas in fours so that you can keep track of where I am on the canvas.
So first you're going to want to mix blue and white to create a lighter blue.
Kind of like that. When we start this guy you don't want too much paint on your
paintbrush because we want the background to dry as quickly as possible.
So going across the top of the canvas you're going to want to create an arch
and only paint left and right never go up and down.
And you want to kind of create a feathered edge at the end
so that we can fade into the next color. We're also going to use the light
blue on the bottom of the canvas.
So now that the blue is set we're gonna create orange using a mixture of yellow
and red. When mixing this color you're going to want to use a little bit more
yellow than you are red. Now that we have our orange mixed we're actually going to
take half of this and make peach using the orange that we made and white.
So right under the blue we're gonna go in with the peach. Very lightly because if
you get too close it might turn it into green.
And same thing for the bottom
Okay, now to blend these two I'm gonna go in with the
big brush, a little bit of white paint - just a little bit on the tip - and some
water so just dip it real quick brush it off and hopefully this will give us a
kind of
faded effect.
And same thing for the bottom.
Okay, and then after those two are blended in we're gonna go in with the
orange that we made earlier right underneath the peach
Okay, and then we're going to go in with just a little bit of water to blend the
peach and the orange on the top and the bottom.
And then we're gonna go in with yellow.
Okay, so that's pretty much it for the background. I would let it sit a little
bit and just make sure it's all dry before we start the next part.
So now we're gonna work on the Sun and you'll need a mixture of yellow and white.
And then you're just gonna want to create a dome shape on the horizon.
So now that your sun is set I would just take some yellow and add it to the edges
so that you can get a more defined line.
Okay, so at this point your background and the sun is done so now we're just
going to be working with black and what we're gonna do is we're gonna define the
horizon line with a tree line. So the bottom, you're gonna want to make it as
straight as possible. So just take a little bit at a time on your smaller
square brush and we're gonna go ahead and start here in the middle and just
make really thin lines.
Now once we have that, we're going to be taking our round large brush and you're
going to want to fan it out a little bit like that and just put a little bit of
black on there and then we're going to dab some trees.
And you're going to want to make the tree line uneven on the top because
obviously not all trees are the same size.
All right, so after I was done with the treeline
I took some water and a little bit of black paint and basically feathered out
that underneath and that's gonna create the shadow of the tree line. All right so,
with the same small square brush, we're gonna go in with the black again
and this time we're going to be working on the grasses that are going to be in
the foreground. So you'll just want a little bit and you'll want to create the
stalk first.
Like that, and we're just going to feather it out because that - those are
where the seeds are.
Like that. And you're gonna create a lot of those along the bottom.
In between each grass I'm gonna fill it in lightly with black just because if
you've ever seen this grass in person it's pretty dense. Now that we have
finished this grass we're gonna go in and make a different type of grass and we're
gonna start from the middle. We're gonna use the smaller square brush again and
still use black and we're just going to do up strokes not too high and we want
all different sizes as well. So we're just like this.
So once that's all done we're gonna still use black and we're just gonna go
in and create another grassy area but in the water more out here so we're just
gonna do a nice line.
And because it's further away the grass will be smaller.
All right, so as you can see and I carried it out and made it smaller as I
went closer inward and then I did the same thing to the bottom as we did with
the horizon just feeding it out a little bit. Okay, now that we're done with
that I'm still gonna use the fine tip brush and I'm gonna create a muskrat
mound. Okay, so basically I took the black and I made a bunch of hashtag marks and
stick lines to make them all into one little mound and then now I'm gonna do
the same thing as we did to the horizon and just blend out the bottom. Okay, and
then on top of the mound usually you'll find duck or a great blue heron or an
eagle so you can choose not to put anything on top but I'm gonna try and do
a great blue heron. Okay, so before I started my great blue heron I wanted to
sketch it out just to make sure I was getting it right and so now I will
go in start from the peak make it really thin.
always make it smaller because remember if you make something too big you can't
really go back.
All right, and there you have it. I'm here at one of the wetland areas here on the
refuge that looks similar to the one you painted including marsh grasses, a
muskrat mound and maybe a great blue heron or a bird of your choice. Thank you
so much for tuning in, I hope you enjoyed painting as much as I did. We want to see
your completed artwork, so please share those pictures with us on our Facebook
and remember if you choose to visit Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, please
adhere to CDC guidelines and stay six feet apart from other visitors.
Thank you!