Chapter 4. The Basic Techniques of Oils SKY TECHNIQUES

Transcription

1 Chapter 4 The Basic Techniques of Oils SKY TECHNIQUES Beginning With Medium Basic Blue Sky Single Color Skies Multi Color Skies Circular Skies Horizontal Skies More. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

2 The Basic Techniques of Oils TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 4: Skies & Clouds Techniques SKIES Art Supplies For Painting Skies 4-3 Beginning Each Sky The Basic Blue Sky Single Color Sky The Two-Color Sky The Multi-Color Sky Horizontal Skies Vertical Color Skies Circular Color Skies The Sun Sunbeams Making A Sky Hazy Night Skies The Moon Northern Lights 4-22 The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

3 Art Supplies For Painting Skies Skies are an accent to your landscape and seascape paintings. They can be very simple or complex, detailed, set the mood or temperance, or even the dominant element of your composition. I find the later to be the case more frequently with seascapes than landscapes. As artists, we need to decide the roll our skies and clouds will play in our composition. As we begin this chapter I d like to just point out that when practicing, use any color or combination of color. I m going to show you a wide variety of color so you can practice, practice, practice the techniques. For my traditional oils I use a few brushes to achieve the effect I desire for skies and clouds. My chief work horse brushes include: The big landscape brush, the 1 landscape brush, the #6 Fan brush and a choice of blenders. Shown is a 1 1/2 hake and a 1 goat hair mop. I could use just about any color I have to create a beautiful sky. I chose these colors to illustrate techniques in this book. I use these same types of brushes when painting with water-mixable oils. The big difference is I have two sets of brushes. One set for traditional oils, the other for water-mixable oils. I ve organized this chapter by the type of clouds and skies you will be painting. In my DVDs, I went through the various skies and especially the clouds by brush. showing how to paint the same cloud with different brushes. We ll still cover the how to paint skies and clouds with different brushes. But the organization is redefined to achieve the most efficient methodology of quickly referencing the type of skies and clouds you d like to study. In fact, I ve deployed this type of organization throughout the book for all subjects. I love this particular brand of water mixable oils. I can get all of the colors I need. They re green and quite earth-friendly. I find no difference in how I paint with Water- Mixable oils from traditional oil paints. Except I don t have to fuss with solvents, easier to clean, excellent on-location. YES! The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

4 Beginning Each Sky I coat my canvas with medium first when painting landscapes and seascapes. This keep the canvas wet throughout my painting session and facilitates the application of paint to the canvas and the subsequent mixing/blending of colors. Depending upon the mix of the medium, I can have a fast drying medium or a slow drying medium for work requiring more than one painting session. The most basic of all skies is the single color, Basic Blue Sky. I typically use Prussian Blue (PB) as my base blue sky color. In most instances, I ll take my large landscape brush and load it with a small amount of Medium White (MW). I ll then wiggle the brush as I stroke down the center of the canvas. Using an X stroke (overlapping side to side), I ll spread out the MW until it covers the entire canvas with a thin, even coat. Touch your finger when done to the center of the canvas and inspect your finger. If you can clearly see your fingerprint, great. If you can hardly make out the print, you need to add more MW to the canvas. Simply reload your brush and repeat the application process. If your finger looks like a glob, you re going to have to remove the excess from your brush. In the event you need to use Medium Clear (MC) rather than MW, the process of applying medium to the canvas is the same. Except for one thing. When the canvas is thoroughly covered with a thin even coat of MC, take a paper towel and wipe off the excess medium. What s left behind, will be more than adequate for painting. Water Mixable Oils require a medium based on modified linseed oil. I mix water along with a small amount of paint. This achieves the same results as ready-to-use medium white/clear/black/lavender products. Mix three parts water to one part modified linseed oil Add a small amounts of paint until you have the right consistency. Then use as instructed above. I mix what I want to use at each painting session. And I ll vary the color to suit my needs: TW, IB, lavender or any other colors. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

5 Basic Blue Sky After the canvas is prepared with medium load up the large landscape brush with PB. It is most critical that you have an even distribution of paint on the bottom of the entire length of the brush. The best way to achieve an even distribution of paint onto the bristle tips is to gently tape the big landscape brush down onto a smear of color evenly so that the entire length and with of the brush taps the color simultaneously. Tap several times and look at the tips of the brush to ensure there are no globs of paint. Only an even distribution of color. After properly loading the brush start on one of the top edges of the canvas. Using an X stroke cover the entire sky area of the canvas going across the canvas row by row until you reach the horizon. Do not reload the brush with paint during this process. Simply drop down row by row until you ve painted the sky to the horizon. You can darken any area requiring more color later. The reason for painting from the top left or right corner and continuing row by row until you ve finished up at the horizon is to put depth into the painting. Let s examine this statement. Go outside and look straight up at that big beautiful sky directly above you. And yes, you ll have to bend your head at an almost 90 degree angle toward your back. Notice how bright and brilliant the colors are directly above you. And as you slowly tilt your head until you re upright and looking at the horizon you see the distant colors becoming less and less bright until they start to mist. This is because of distance. As you look across miles you re looking through air. Air is comprised of water and oxygen molecules. The more water molecules you look through, the more diffused your observed object will become. Notice the difference in details when looking at a mountain that s two miles away versus 200 miles. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

6 Let me explain the X stroke. I will paint one diagonal stroke from top left down and right for 3 or 4 inches. Then without stopping, I ll flip my hand with the brush such that its easy for me stroke from the top right and down left for 3 or 4 inches. I ll overlap one X over another as I paint across the canvas. This is the basic X Stroke. The darkest color will be at the first stroke and the lightest at the last stroke. There s two reasons for this. (1) As you paint, color removes itself from your brush bristles to the canvas. With each stroke, you have less paint. So RESIST the natural tendency to stroke harder and harder match the current stroke color with the previous stroke s color. (2) With each stroke, you re also picking up MW which lightens considerably the paint color on your brush. MW is designed to help transfer color to the canvas AND in blending colors together. In this case its blue and white. By adding more and more MW to the brush when painting the sky, the sky naturally turns lighter and lighter the closer you paint to the horizon. Once the initial coat of the Basic Blue Sky is finished, its time to blend the sky. Right now, as the lower left picture below identifies, we don t really have a sky. Just a big canvas with a heck of a lot of Xs on it. For this operation use either another clean dry large landscape brush or what s known as a 2 or 1 wide blender (Hake, mop, etc ) brush. Starting at the horizon level where you have the lightest sky color, blend in the reverse direction used in painting the Basic Blue Sky. We re essentially blending from the horizon up to directly above us. Use quick, medium to light pressure on the brush, strokes to completely blend the sky. I like to have the corners of my skies a bit dark to stop the viewers eyes from leaving the canvas. So reload the big landscape brush with JUST A TOUCH OR TWO of PB. Using X strokes, darken up the top canvas corners. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

7 The Basic Blue Sky is simple, and easy to learn to paint. Here are a few examples of paintings I ve done where I wanted a traditional blue sky. The upper left is Blue Romance in which I wanted the sky to get darker as the scene unfolded to the right. Above, The Fifth Hole hardly has a sky as there s quite a few clouds and far distant hills, but a simple basic blue sky is spot on. To the left in Beach Walk, I ve added a touch of IB to PB to gray the sky a bit, but keep it a blue color. Quite the opposite below with Buddies in which I wanted a light blue sky to illustrate a bright, sun-lit day. I used a light blue sky in Horseridge Mountain below to also illustrate a bright, sun-lit day. In general, the Basic Blue Sky is not a central focal point of a painting, it simply sets the stage to say this is a normal day, or a normal evening. More color is required to illustrate weather, time of day, etc... The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

8 Single Color Sky When using a Black Canvas I apply the Medium Clear first, then I cover the sky area with the Base Color. In this example, its PB. Then I lighten the PB with TW in a widening circle so the sky color gets darker and darker and darker as it progresses away from the light source. Very powerful for depth & drama. Autumn s Walk has the allusion of several sky colors, but its only one color. What give us the sense of a complex, or multi-colored sky is the distant trees fading in and out of view. There are two options that could be easily deployed: (1) Center bright spot, and (2) very thin even coat of TW to effect a haze throughout. The Highlands has a very small sky area. The bluish lavender I use for the sky color is complemented by the green, green grass of home. Don t be afraid to use any color. Let your imagination go. When designing Andy s Harvest, I d picked up the old scarecrow at a roadside gift shack. The pumpkin from our neighbors and the Sunflowers from a local craft store. This was a delightful project that even though it was complex, what really stumped me was the color I should use for the background. At first I tried black, then brown, finally basic blue. Falls of Thunder is a magnificent scene I chose to paint in black and white. I believe that choice really added to the drama of this painting.. I used just a bit of black for the basic sky as the clouds were to be the chief focus point when the painting was completed. The Black lightened when paint over MW. And also provided a good blending base for the clouds. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

9 Two Color Sky A two color sky has an endless set of possibilities for the beginning artist. In this example, we ll show how the painting a sky with two colors, Ivory Black (IB) and Alizarin Crimson (AC) combine to create interest, appear to have clouds and create a sense of a storm. The first step is to cover your canvas with a thin, even coat of medium white (MW). Tap onto the corner of your big brush a small amount of IB and swirl in four different lines of dark in the sky area. Using a circular motion lay in the dark portion of the sky. Re-load the brush by tapping into a small amount of AC and using X strokes, paint across the horizon level up into the black swirls. Leave small gaps of unpainted sky area. Clean and dry your big brush. Starting at the base of the horizon blend everything together row by row heading up to the canvas edge. Blend over the sky gabs. This puts a small amount of color onto this canvas portion giving the illusion of clouds. With just two colors have a dynamic sky with multiple colors, clouds and weather. I did this sky for Mountain View. Remember, this is just an example and you can put in any type of shapes and mixture of two colors you d like for your own creations. All of this is possible because of blending. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

10 Multi-Color Sky Multi color skies are painted exactly like 1 or 2 color skies, except we're adding more color. Remember, these skies will either stand alone, or we ll have clouds painted over them and the sky color underneath will show through. This adds a lot of interest to your sky. Cover your canvas with a thin, even coat of MW. Swirl in each of your colors. In my example above, I ve swirled in PB, then IB, and finally AC. Blend the sky thoroughly with a clean dry big brush. Now I was able to add clouds and have them show through for an excellent presentation. Try this. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

11 Horizontal Sky We can create different types of colors by layering together either horizontally or vertically. The key to this type of sky color arrangement is three fold: 1. Layer the colors in first. 2. Use progressive colors 3. Thorough blending. Layer the colors first: For a horizontal sky we re stacking the colors in strips on the canvas in the sky area from either the left or right edge of the canvas across to the other side. We do not want this to appear uniform, so have crazy uneven lines. I especially like this as I cannot draw a straight line to save my soul. In the example to the right, you ll see my lines curve a bit up then down as I go across the canvas. Overlap some strokes if you d like. Use Progressive Colors: I like using colors that make sense. I also have to make the decision where light will be the lightest. I m sure there s an exception somewhere, but with horizontal skies, lights are brightest overhead or close to the horizon level. In the example, light is close to the horizon level. I chose this progression of colors: IY, YO, BR, AC, AC/PB, PB. This gives the effect of an evening sky in which a rainbow of colors is present. I could use any type of color sequence I like, but I need to gradually progress the colors from light to dark starting at either the top or bottom. Thorough Blending. Proper blending can only be accomplished with a clean dry brush. I prefer, for this type of sky, to using either the Big Landscape brush or the 1 landscape brush. The big brush allows me to blend a lot more surface at once and I can easily adjust pressure. It s amazing that with the light colors, so much more pressure is required to blend two colors together. I m sure you ll find that as you move from lighter colors to darker you have to ease up on the pressure. Otherwise your canvas will quickly be over run by the darker colors. And that s the opposite effect of what we d like to achieve. As you blend from color to color, keep an eye on your brush. Each time the bristles begin to fill with color either re clean the brush, or wipe it thoroughly clean with a paper towel. As you progress through the darker colors, you may have to resort to wet cleaning the brush as described in Chapter 1. When blending, you re trying to achieve a muted effect such that the viewer will not be able to easily identify where one color begins and the other ends. It s a graduation from a light color to a dark that gives the vertical sky its enchantment. Once the vertical sky has been painted you can then add clouds, elements or leave as is. One thing to plan prior to painting the vertical sky is placement of clouds. I suggest placing clouds to divide light and dark sky sections. I use the vertical sky approach in painting seascapes and mountain scenes. It s a superb technique when blending is done correctly. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

12 Vertical Color Sky The vertical sky is one of the most dynamic and impressive way of bringing together several, closely related colors to create a dramatic impact. Basically, the secret is to paint 4-5 different colors to form a sky, yet the viewer would be hard-pressed to tell where one color begins and the other ends. What we have is a sky that graduates across several colors. What s nice is that any beginner can easily become proficient in quickly learning how to paint these beautiful skies. 1. Cover the entire canvas with a thin, even coat of medium. 2. Load the first color onto the big brush and paint the sky area top to bottom the width of the brush. 3. Load the second color onto the big brush and paint on either side of the first color. 4. Load the third color onto the big brush and paint on the outside of the second color. 5. Repeat for the 4-5 colors to be included in the sky. 6. Clean your big brush. 7. With a clean, dry big brush, using quick X strokes, first blend the first color and border between the first and second sky color. 8. Do not go back into the center of the canvas. This will dirty your brush and we do not want this. 9. Clean your brush between colors by vigorously wiping the brush with a clean paper towel. 10. Repeat steps 7-10 for each strip of color in your sky. Once the sky has been completed, you can paint clouds to really complement all of the colors in the sky, or you can go right into painting the background, mountain, forest, or whatever your latest masterpiece is to contain. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

13 The Circular Color Sky This sky is comprised of three different colors: Indian Yellow (IY) Alizarin Crimson (AC) Prussian Blue (AC) The key to making this sky successful is thorough blending with the large landscape brush. I use this color combination quite a bit when painting a seascape or when painting an early morning haze. However the technique of painting a sky with layers of circles from canvas center to canvas edge finds significant appeal. But again, it requires blending, or the sky will look like you painted a target instead. 1. Begin by loading the brush with IY, tapping straight down for an even distribution of paint on the brush. 2. Using X strokes paint a central IY circle. 3. Using the same, dirty large brush, load up AC by tapping straight down. 4. Using X strokes (Overlapping IY) paint a circle all around the IY. 5. Using the same, dirty large brush, load up PB by tapping straight down. 6. Using X strokes began at one top corner of the canvas and paint the sky all of the Way down to the horizon. Paint up next to the AC circle but not into it. 7. Clean brush, or use a clean big brush. 8. Blend the IY center with vigorous X strokes. 9. Beginning at the IY/AC border, vigorously blend IY/AC border and AC circle. Do not go into the IY center. 10. Beginning at the AC/PB border, vigorously X stroke blend AC/PB border and PB sky from top to bottom. Do not go into either the IY center or AC circle. 11. Your sky is completed. 12. This is exactly how I painted Day Is Done. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

14 The Sun There are three approaches in painting a sun. 1. Paint a very bright spot in the sky to indicate without doubt that herein the sun resides. 2. To hide the sky and paint sunbeams flowing out from behind the element hiding the sky. 3. To physically paint the sun in the sky. We show later in the book how to paint a moon. The principle is the same. The time of day is what defines the circle as a moon or sun. In Day is Done, I used a couple of combinations in order to set up a glow in the sky and then to paint a very bright spot to indicate without any doubt where the sun resided. The important thing to remember is the sun is bright. So wherever you ve planned your sun in the sky, there s going to be a bright glow in the area. For this example I use the brightest yellow, which is IY. Lightly load the brush and using X strokes to paint in center. Whatever the sky has, paint the same in water, using a strip of IY. I want to graduate the colors, so I paint with X strokes a ring of YO, followed by a circle of AC Make sure your brush is ready to take on clean colors. Be sure to wipe out strongly excess paint in the brush upon each swipe. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

15 Loading the big brush with a bit of PB, we ll be able to complete the painting and then blend with either another Big Brush or a smaller blender brush. Time to finish the sky and establish the sun. You may have to do this procedure 3 or 4 times to establish a bright sun. (1) tap corner of big brush into TW, (2) Using tight circles be sure to paint with just the top edge of the big brush. (3) Blend lightly. Repeat 2-3 times for the brightness you need. Remember, you re painting a size larger than the size of your sun so the actual shape is not seen, but a bright sun-brilliant glow is in the sky. Below I ve expanded the sky area so you can see there s no specific shape to the glow, just lots of bright colors which, when observed from a distance of a few feet look like the sun. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

16 Sunbeams I just love doing sunbeams. They re easy and fun. Load the edge of a #10 knife with a small bead of sun colored paint and apply the bead to the canvas the entire length from where the sunbeams are to peek out. In the example above, I wanted the sunbeams coming from behind a cloud. Once the bead of paint has been placed, use a #3 bristle fan brush to pull the sunbeams down or angled in the direction the sunbeams are radiating. Re-paint the cloud color over the edge from where the sunbeams are first appearing to make sure everything looks natural. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

17 Making A Sky Hazy This is a multi-color sky That s prepared with three colors. Load a big brush with TW and begin X strokes in sky center. X stroke in widening circle until the entire IY center color is covered. Continue X strokes in circle until the entire AC color is covered. Continue X strokes in circle until the entire PB color is covered. At this point the entire sky has been covered w/ TW and needs blending. Thoroughly clean Big Brush with paper towel. Remove all color. Blend entire sky with dry brush using X strokes from center out. Your sky now has a nice hazy look to it. Finish the masterpiece. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

18 Night Skies Night skies are the simplest of all skies to paint. There are about 3 decisions to make as you begin. 1. What color(s) to use? 2. Are there clouds? 3. Is there a moon.? In this example we ll show you how to make these decisions. Lets begin my discussing my approach in painting night skies. Both are shown in this chapter. There s the black gesso approach such as I used in Tropical Night, and there s the standard canvas approach I used in Midnight Surf. The difference is this. In black gesso canvas I put the medium (typically MC) onto the canvas in a thin even coat and cover with one or more transparent colors. Transparent colors are those colors that when applied over a dry black surface continues to appear black. Prussian Blue is an excellent transparent color. Pthalo blue is not. Once transparent colors have been applied to the canvas I will then paint moons, stars, clouds, airplanes, dragons, whatever elements I want as part of the sky. In our clouds chapter, we really go into painting a fantastic night cloud scene to illustrate just how easy it is to paint these types of scenes on a black canvas. Thus the selection of transparent colors for the base sky is quite important. As I use a darkened or dirty color on my brush to paint the various sky elements, the transparent color already on the canvas will mix and show through. This is especially true if one of the colors I m using has some white in it. Some extraordinary skies can be achieved with this approach. Be sure to practice the use of painting on a black canvas overlaid with transparent colors so you can gain some insight as you how you can best design your own night masterpiece. The other approach is using a standard canvas, such as I show you in the Moon section of this chapter. You first cover the canvas with the medium of choice (MC if you want the colors to be true, MW if you want the colors to blend light, MB if you want the colors to blend gray). Then mix up the sky colors exactly as you want for the night scene and apply them. In this chapter, we re not trying to teach you to paint clouds but this example will introduce you to cloud painting so you can see how best to plan your night sky. Begin the night sky by covering a canvas with 2 coats of black gesso. Let dry then cover with medium (MC). Now apply transparent color over medium. I used PB. Mix a small amount of color into TW to form the moon color. Do not use pure TW. With finger apply to location of moon on canvas. See section on Moon for details. With a hake or blender brush lightly set the moon into the sky using X strokes. This sets the moon into the sky. Repeat this procedure if the moon is not bright enough. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

19 After the moon is painted, I ll want to add clouds. They ll ring the moon for a nice moonlit night effect. Load a #3 fan with a cloud color mix consisting of PTG, PB and TW. The color will look very dark on the palette, but once you add to the canvas, it ll be very bright. You re only worried about shaping the edges of the clouds. Once the cloud edges are formed, I ll essentially wipe the rest of the color out of the brush onto the canvas. With the blending brush, blend out the bottoms of the clouds up to the cloud s top edge without touching the edges. Wipe the brush off with a paper towel and lightly fluff the cloud edges with a half arching stroke toward the upper center edge of the canvas. Then X stroke the entire sky with the blender to set the clouds into the sky. The results are truly beautiful. Add as many layers of clouds as you d like. In Tropical Nights I had three layers of clouds as shown below. I d also underpainted the canvas to the right of the moon with AC, a transparent color. See the effect the multi-colored cloud appearance has on the sky? Be sure to practice this technique. It s a killer. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

20 The Moon There are two approaches in painting moons. And you can paint them on a bare canvas or black canvas. In this first example of a seascape at night I used a bare canvas with black gesso for the sea area. It helps to plan out your painting with a general map as you see right. Paint the sky area with MW and sea with MC. As with the sun, you must first paint the glow around the moon before actually painting the moon. For seascapes, I wanted to add to the power of the seascape by duplicating the sky colors into the sea. In this example I ve mixed AC & TW to form the glow color and painted the moon with my finger, and the sea with a brush. With paint on your index finger simply rotate your finger in a small circle and your moon will become nice and round. Remember to clean your finger. Paint the rest of the sky with X strokes. Around the moon just layer the color in a circle with the brush and blend out to the rest of the sky using X strokes. For night scenes, you may have to paint the sky with two coats of sky color. In this example I felt the AC/TW was too dark so I lightened it and blended the glow area with the hake brush. I reloaded my index finger with a pinkish white and painted a moon much smaller inside the glow. Blend the moon using a hake brush. You may have to re-paint if the moon is not bright enough. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

21 For a black gesso moon, I ll refer you to our discussion in this chapter on Night Skies. We show you how to make a moon there. Let s now take a look at how we can put a lot of detail into our moons with little effort. Mix a glow color close to wheat with YO/ TW and a brighter moon color. Paint the glow area for the moon with a 1 brush. Do not paint the glow area in a circle, paint an irregular glow area. Load your finger and paint the moon using the bright moon color inside the glow. Rub your finger in a circular motion. Load your finger with TW and rub just a bit into the upper left quadrant of the moon to brighten edge. Load the finger with a touch of burnt sienna to the glow mixture and shadow light the lower right quadrant edge of the moon. Now lightly blend the moon with the hake (blender) brush. Make sure the upper left quadrant remains bright and the lower right quadrant remains dark. Repeat highlights if needed. The left photo did not do justice to our Midnight Surf moon. The photo of the finished painting to the right shows the allure the moon has in this painting. The viewer s eye is drawn from the reflected light on the sea right to the moon. Enjoy moons in your paintings. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques

22 Northern Lights Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is one of nature s most magical gifts to mankind. Generally visible in the upper northern hemisphere anywhere from late fall through winter. We can create this marvel on canvas fairly easily by painting on a black gesso canvas that has a thin coat of MC and a coat of base sky paint. Northern lights are typically turquoise, but often can lend themselves to red or yellow. I like base painting the canvas with 1-3 colors. Sky base colors are PTB/PTG/PB/ IY/AC. After the base sky color(s) are in place, mix up a turquoise color (PTG/TW) and with a #3 fan draw in the Aurora lines. In paintings its considered good practice to have the Aurora ribbons streak behind an object as they head into the horizon. As you design yours, keep in mind where this spot is in your canvas. With a 1 brush, pull the turquoise paint straight down the canvas & up for a flat ribbon effect. Once the Aurora Borealis ribbons have all been pulled up and down, take the big landscape brush and horizontally brush the flat ribbon. Very similar to painting water reflections. This sets the Aurora Borealis into the sky. Don t forget how the Aurora Borealis is to disappear into the horizon. The Basic Techniques of Oils, Chapter Sky Techniques