Transcripts
1. Introduction: What's up, you guys? Robert Joyner here and welcome to landscape painting fundamentals, a course for all levels and all mediums. No matter if you're a beginner e like Fastow's, perhaps you've been around painting for a while. You work in watercolor. It doesn't matter. You're going to find very useful tips in this course is broken down into many sections from understanding abstract masses. Two trees cloud stifle. But each section has a highly detailed breakdown of what I want you to learn the big picture. And then I show you how some of the masters use these ideas in their paintings from the NATO Isaac Labaton to ST. And then you will be asked to roll your sleeves up and get to work. So each section has an assignment for you to complete. And don't worry, I'm not really leave you hanging because I complete the same assignment as you. That gives you something to compare your work to. I film everything in real time talking through my thought process along the way. So included are 40 plus lessons I guarantee will improve your landscape artwork profoundly . So if you're excited, you're raving get started. We're going to kick things off with materials and then we're going to discuss abstract Mass . See you on the inside. Thanks for watching.
2. How To Use The Platform: In this video, I
just wanted to go over the Skillshare platform. I know some of you
know how to use it, but I know there are
many others that simply don't understand how
to create a project. How to add more photos, text, and things like that. What I will do now is pull up one of my classes on Skillshare. This may not be the
class you are learning, but it does have everything we need to cover what I wanted to share with
you in this video. This is my watercolor workout
basics and beyond class. And you've got the main
video here. Obviously. If you wanted to make
that video bigger, you can click that and the
top right hand corner, and that will enlarge the video if you want to reduce
that size again, come up here to the top
right-hand corner, click it. And that's going to bring up your navigation menu on
the right-hand side. Now if I hover over
the video with my mouse down here
on the lower left, you have play speed. For some reason you
wanted to slow things down or speed things up. You can always change the speed. Keep in mind if you do change, it just makes sure you
go back and set it to normal if you
want to, in fact, see at a normal speed, you can also rewind
things 15 seconds. If you're watching something
you wanted to see what happened within 15
seconds together, you can click that and
then I'll take you back. And now 1515 second increments. You can click it three
or four times and go back 45 seconds a minute,
whatever you want to do. If you want to make
a note of the video, you can click this little pen That's going to
bring up your note. And that's a good way to remind yourself if something
interesting happen there. And you just wanted to
sort of jot something down that sort of
clicked in your mind. This is your volume. So if it's CBC, this slash like I
have now lets you need to unmute it so you're not going to be able
to see the sound. If I click that now, I can now hear the video
if it were playing, this would be subtitles. So if you wanted to
have a subtitle and the various languages
here, you can do that. You may not like
having subtitles. You can put subtitles
off on the top of that. So if you don't
want to see them, That's how you get rid of them. Again, we can go full screen with that feature in the
lower right-hand corner. So if you wanted to see this and this largest
possible resolution, that is going to be
the option to do it. Okay, So again, that's that one. So that tells you a
little bit about how to navigate some of the
options on the video. Over here on the right. So long as you're in this mode, we can scroll down and
see the different videos. All videos that you
have watched all the way through should
have a checkmark. If you want to again,
get rid of that, you use this button in the top right-hand corner,
you can get rid of it. And then here we see it. Now down here, we
have some tabs. We have the About tab. So that's going to be the class
description that I added. I will often add other classes that you
may be interested in. So throughout the course, I may say if you want to learn more about how to
plan watercolor art, be shorter, checkout the link
in the class description, and that's gonna be right
here in the About tab. So if we scroll down, we can see all of
these are links to different classes I have. So that's a little bit
about the about page. Reviews are where you can see how awesome reviews that the
students left on the class. Here, our discussions, discussions are very
important because that's how I'm
going to notify you about each new lesson of
when they're available. You will see, if you scroll
down, you'll see discussions, you'll see where there's some
different things going on. This is important too. So if you have questions about the class or a
lesson you watched, then you can use this
discussions to get in touch with me and I'll try to respond
to you as soon as possible. You can also share links
and the discussions too. So if you have something
you want to show me, you can always link
it up and I'll be able to see it. Here. You see I can start
a conversation, I can ask a question up and
share project and so on. Speaking up projects,
if I go right here, this tells you a little
bit about the project. So here you'll see each lesson
has a project well almost, but the point is to get
involved and started doing the demos and projects
shared in this class. And here you can scroll down
and see all the students that are posting projects that there's one do
you want to explore? You can click on
that and just see what an awesome job the
students are doing, getting these different
projects and things done. Of course, you can
comment on these two. So over here on the
right-hand side, you can click on that. You can share a little feedbacks and encouragement,
whatever you want to do. If you look at my
project right here, you're going to see that I've got a detailed breakdown
of all my lessons here. So each time I post new
lessons in a class or a demo, I always break it
down and give you a really good description
of what's going on. Now you may want to
create a project. Now, since I already have one, are you going to see
that I don't have the option to make another one. But here is a class that
I don't have a project. You will see this green button
on the right-hand side. To create a project, all you have to do
is click on that. And that's going to bring
up your project option. Now the first thing you'll
see is a cover image. If you want to add
a cover image, just click on that and then
navigate to your image. So I'll just select one here. So I'll select this one. And then that's going
to upload the image. Once it's uploaded. I have the option here on
this slider right there to enlarge it and then
sort of move it around, however I want that to be seen. And once it's done,
click Submit. Again, this is just
the cover image. You can go ahead and add
a title and I'll say, awesome class by Robert. If I can spell that right, that would certainly
help. Description. Hey, took a three-week class
and here's what I did. Now if I hit Enter, That's going to bring the
cursor down here below. And then I can add an image. You see down here, you can see, you can have three options
to add more content. So if I click on image, I can add another image, so I can click on that and then you have to
give it a second. And then that's going
to upload the image. Now I can click Enter and you see I can write more content. I'm like, This is my
cool fish painting. Now, if I wanted to add a video or link and
maybe you're like, Hey, did you happen to see
this picture, whatever. You can double-click on a word and then you have a
link option here, and you can paste
the link in there. Just make sure you
hit the Check button to make it active. And now I can hit enter again
and then add more images. That's how you can
make your project. If you don't want anyone
to see your project, you can click this button
here to make it private. But once you're done,
very, very important, scroll back to the
top and hit Publish. And as soon as you
publish your project, that's going to be visible
for everyone to see. So that's publishing right now. I'm just going to
give it a moment, alright, and then there
it is, right there. So I just added my projects. So let's say you want
to edit your project, you click on that again. And now you come up here to
the top right-hand corner. You can click Edit, and now you can scroll down. Make sure you put the
cursor where you want it. So if I want the next image or the next video or whatever
to be below the fish. I can come down
here and click on the end of the
sentence, hit Enter. And now again, pull in my images or wherever it
is that I want to do. Again, make sure you hit
published when you're done. And then that's
going to save it. You just have to be patient
and let Skill Share save it. Another thing you may
want to do is share your project on social media. So you have this
Copy Project link. You can copy that and share
that wherever you wish. Over here on the right-hand
side, you can hard thing. So if someone did a project
that you really like, you can give it a heart. You can share a comment and say, those fish are amazing, and then hit posts and
that's going to share your comments with whoever
it is you're talking about. So again, just good
stuff to know. And I think if you learn how to use the projects
is very useful. And teachers can often
see them and hopefully they do and they can give you some feedback on
what you're doing. The last thing I want
to share with you is right here under the again, we've got about reviews, discussions, and then
project and resources. These resources
are downloadable. If the class has images,
resource images, whatever the case may be, you can click on the
link and that's going to download it to your device. So I hope this video helps you out and that you
understand a little bit more about how to navigate
the Skillshare platform. And then of course, the
courses that are taught there.
3. Masses 101: welcome to landscape fundamentals. And in this section we're going to talk about masses. There are several ways we can define a mass and use it as a tool, but the first way we're going to use it is to simplify. So as I do this contour drawing, which basically is what it is, I'm going to talk my way through how to simplify a scene. So here you can clearly see we have a sky clouds. We've got trees on the left. We have some smaller trees there where the path leads up into and then in the distance we have a group of trees as well. We also have a ground plane. So my goal before I have even considered doing a painting or any sort of value study or color study is to simply look at the scene and try to understand how I'm going to group all of these shapes together. So ultimately, what you want to do when you simplify groups is you want to reduce it to about you know, six or seven groups, if you possibly can. If you get up in the 10 to 12 range, oftentimes it means you haven't done a good enough job and simplifying and grouping all of these shapes and to, um, less groups. All right, so what you can see here even though it looks like I'm doing a a contour drawing of everything, I'm really taking objects. Ah, group of trees. And I'm making it into one cohesive flowing shape that's going to be better described as we move forward. But for now, I'm going to talk my way through it. If you're a little bit unclear. Still, that's okay, because at once we finish for the section. We're going to certainly cover all of this. I'm great in much greater detail. So what you see here is I've got a collection of shapes. So let's look at the finish drawing here, and you will see that everything is very, very clear and reduced Simplified. So I haven't started drawing blades of grass, flowers, leaves, branches, and so one. I've got everything reduced to its simplest form. And in the next section here I am going to show you exactly what that means. So just below this drawing, I'm going to do a second drawing. I'm going to speed through this because how are draw really isn't that important. I'm just simply copying the main groups that have already drawn and that you saw me do in the first part. Then what I will do is define these groups and to help make this even clear, I will use crayons and the crayons. Each color will represent a group. So here I'm using the red and defining the shape of those trees and the shadow. Because when I look at those trees and shadow that basically all merge into one group in the distance I've got or in the sky rather I've got the one big shape. And then I had the distant hills and then we have the tree and the bush. They're basically on either side of the path. And then we have the ground plane. So here you see me now, putting the blue into the sky and it doesn't really matter what color I use here. It could have been any color. I've got the purple representing the distant trees. And now I'm using the red to define the canopies and then the trunk and in the shadow underneath. Now I have the yellow which will represent the ground plane. I had the orange for the path and in the blue for the two trees. Again, this is how you want to see your subjects. If you don't understand how to simplify, then you need to spend time here before moving on. And now I would define it. So the sky is one. We got the distant trees, which is to the ground plane, which is three. The middle ground trees, which is four. We had the path which is five, and then the trees on the left and the shadows underneath for six. So they're my groups, and I hope that this lesson gives you some idea on how to simplify. We are going to discuss this in greater detail as we move forward.
4. Masses With Light & Shadow: to take simplifying masses to the next level. We're going to begin to look at light and shadow when I say Look at it, we're going to begin to simplify it, but we want to consider it in our drawing now. So beside the 1st 2 demos you're going to see, I'm just simply putting the same exact drawing into the artwork here have defined my light source on the top left hand side. I will reintroduce the inspiration image for you, and what I will start to do now is to simplify the light and shadow first, starting with shadow underneath the trees. They're on the path again. It's not about getting every single detail or subtle nuance is just simply about understanding where the shadows are going and then how they impact the shape itself. Often times you will find that light and shadow can join shapes together. Other times, it may break them apart. So you always have to consider how the light and shadow are impacting these shapes, and there's no better way to do it than to do a little study like this. So here you can see, I began to consider the shadows on the tree in the bush dead ahead. And now I'm going to look at how the light is impacting that particular bush there. And then I will also do the same on all the other shapes. Starting with this looks like a group of trees here on the right hand side and again, we're going to keep it very, very simple. We just want to understand how those shapes look and often times you may find that the inspiration, image, the light, the shape of the light, the way is hitting a bush. Maybe a little bit boring and maybe, Ah, very geometric or predictable. So you may have to tweak things. So as I I am doing this, I am simply looking at the image and then making decisions. Okay on how I want to interpret the light. Is it giving me something good and interesting to look at? Or do I need to consider changing some of these shapes to make it more interesting? And in this case, everything is working pretty well, so there's not a lot of changes I need to make now. There's some other interpretations and decisions I need to make. I can see There's a little bit of a shadow there where the grass is that is casting a shadow on the path. There's also a darker section of grass that runs along that path. I've decided to not make that its own separate shape. So that dark strip of grass there I'm going to keep it as is and just simply ignore it for now, to finish it off. I'm going to add a few shapes of the clouds, and that's going to give me pretty much everything I need and ordered to create my light and shadow color sketch. So this point, you always want to look at your shapes, make sure you have something that works because if it's not working here than it certainly will not work in the finish painting.
5. Masses With Light & Shadow Demo: Now you will learn how to simplify color masses. To do that, I'm going to introduce you to my palette Yellow Oakar, cat orange cad, red light, cadmium, yellow light, fellow blue and titanium white. And I am just using a piece of archival foam core as my palate. So the goal here and just for this section right here is just to put a little bit of tone down on my drawing, and that's just going to give me a base to work from whether or not you do this is up to you. Some artists like the tone a neutral gray, a mid tone grey. But for this one, I'm just going to use the poker, the orange and a little bit of white. Now that is dry. I will start to mix my first color mass, starting with a little bit of fellow blue, orange and red. I'm looking for something in the green family, but I want that to be a little bit darker, some trying to define an add color to the shadow side of these trees and mainly the underneath the canopy. There is going to always be a little bit darker, obviously, because the sun is higher, so when the sun is high, is casting light down on the top of the canopy of the trees. Therefore, you're getting shadow underneath, so now I'm going to continue with that shape. Remember, I've already defined and simplified my shape pattern. So now I'm trying to join it through color and trying to keep the shadows of the trees the trunks. And then it's cash. Shadows on on the ground, basically the same color, have decided to interpret the shadow of the tree there in the path area the same thing because they're roughly the same distance away from the viewer. If, for example, the canopy of trees was pushed further in the background, that would mean that dark shadow would be lighter and value and perhaps less saturated, then the trees that are closer to you. But in this case, I determined and decided they're roughly the same distance from the view or as we see it Now, what I would do is use a little bit of poker, a little touch of the fail Oh, and basically coming up with a nice light value and color here to use for the sky at this juncture, you can decide where I could decide to just skip the clouds, because again, this is all about simplifying the color mass and not necessarily trying to capture every single detail. But you'll see that I go around some of the shapes of the trees. I'm going to go ahead and paint through the clouds and we'll add those later on when we work with great Asians. So basically, when you're doing this sort of exercise, he always have to kind of remember what the lesson is about. And that's about masses and, more importantly, about simplifying. So we're basically taking the very first stop, an idea we learned and we're applying it to this study. And the only difference is we're using a little bit of color now. I decided to show you on my palette as I'm mixing it. So for that reason, I'm going to take the inspiration away for right now. So what I'm trying to do here is get a base green. I'm going to add to my palette a little bit of a lizard crimson that you will see in between the yellow and the red basically in the middle, and I'm dipping into that right now. That's going to give me a little bit cooler red to work with, and I'll explain that in just a second. So basically what I'm trying to do is mix up a hue for the distant trees. So we are looking all the way behind the hill of the ground level in the very back of the background. So my thinking is to completely push that more to a cool green eso. If I use the cat orange or the cad red light, that's a much warmer color, and in this this case, it just simply wouldn't work. Has tried to mix that with the blue. It's going to grade out a little bit too much. So having that cool red, the Eliza in Crimson will allow me to push that mawr to a violent. I know this course isn't about color mixing theory, but I just wanted to talk you through some of these things as I go, and perhaps you can pick up a few extra tips. So once I get the distant trees in there that I can start to address the next one, which will be the foreground Now I know the foreground will be very lightened value, and it will also be fairly warm. So I'll go ahead and get my warm hues down, which will be the yellow and the Oakar at a little bit of fail. Oh, to it. Now, if you haven't used Fellow comes in and green as well. I may come in other colors or Hughes, but it's a very, very potent color. You only need a little bit of it, so I'll mix all that up and then add a little bit of titanium white to it, and that's going to give me my base color. And as you can see, everything is very flat. So what? We're not dealing with gradations. We're not dealing with all the subtle changes from the distant background to the foreground on the ground plane or simply grouping and simplifying it into one particular Hugh eso. At this stage, it's important to do that because these are the steps that you want to take whenever you approach a painting. If you get caught up too soon and details and the great Asians and all the things that really don't matter than you eventually miss out on the big picture, and that's understanding how these big shapes relate to each other, how the colors relate to each other and so one. So anyway, you can see I'm just applying that to the entire ground plane there and no working in between the trunks. And it's OK at this point to decide if certain things don't work as well. So I decided that the trunks of the trees on the left hand side they were too predictable. They were equally spaced apart, so I painted over a few of them just to have some irregular distance gaps in between them. So that covers the ground playing there. And now it was time to move on, and the next stage will be the light on the trees. Now I can look at the image and tell that the light on top of the trees that particular color is lighter and value than that of the ground. So I'm just trying to be sure I understand that through simplification, Um, no. We get a reduced amount of Hughes, but I want to also understand that getting the hue in the ballpark at this stage is important. So simplifying doesn't always mean not doing it correctly, of course, or doing it without taking note as to which value is darker than the other and so on and allow. This comes with experience. So if you've never worked a lot with color and understand how certain colors have its own value, then that's something that will take some time but basically the canopy of the tree here. Even though that's hitting, you know, a direct light is coming on top of those leaves. I knew that the leaves themselves are much darker collectively that air in the sun than that of the ground and the grass on the ground plane. So that gives me the, uh, color for the trees. And now I can start to address the next shape there. And that's going to be this s shaped curve, which I am using a little bit of the crimson touch of the cad red light orange tan or the Oakar Rather and even a touch of the blue just to gray it up a little bit. And then, of course, the titanium white. It's got a little bit of a pinkish hue to it, so I will do my best to get that particular color in there but again, always thinking along the lines of simplifying it versus trying to overcomplicate it. So now I can use a little bit of the grays that I have on my palette. There I will add the shadow going across the path, basically coming from the bush on the left hand side there. And now I can use that same Hugh to give the indication of a cash shadow from the grass onto the path. So at this stage, I can determine or decide if anything needs to be tweet. So for me, I wanted to bring a little bit lighter color to the ground plane. I thought that would kind of and also wants to dole it down just a little bit. So felt that color was a little bit, um, too bright. Or perhaps this had too much chroma. So I just wanted to neutralize that a little bit with some grays and give it a better sense of light and just make it so where it's not quite as, um as green as it wa. So just reducing the green, adding a little bit neutral to it and then kind is knocking that colored back, a little bit fault thought that would just kind of quiet the painting down because a lot of times it's so easy to put this this really bright, intense color down and then it just becomes distracting. That's in a nutshell is basically what I thought was happening. So hopefully this looks a little bit quieter, but yet it still gets the point across, and the colors are still simplified. Now what I would do is get a little bit of a lighter value white there, and I'm going to add or indicate some of the clouds. Now again, very important. If you decide to add certain details and shapes that you have to, you know, ask yourself. You know, do I want this to be within the same group as I originally planned? Or is this going to be a separate shape? Remember, this is all about simplifying things, and oftentimes artists will make good decisions in the beginning. But then as the painting progresses, they start to make edits. And then next thing you know, they're putting values there too light or too dark into a group when it starts to break it up. But I thought adding some later value clouds there wouldn't altered too much. So long as you know I didn't go, Ah, too late or too dark with it. And obviously I didn't put any gray into the clouds yet. But when I do, I'll be sure that I keep Keep in mind that I do not want that group to be broken up, so you have to decide accordingly and be smart about making the sort of changes and additions to these simplified masses. So what do you see me doing here? Is making a change. And I didn't like the Hill line. I felt like it was a little bit too high, so I'm going to fall back and knock that down a little bit. I'm also putting in some little sky holes there into the trees, and I think pushing that down a little better, knocking that hill down a little bit, I will actually bring the trees in the middle ground there. Forward eso is just going Teoh, I feel make the overall feeling of the painting. Ah, little bit better and again, Um, you always go back and edit things accordingly again if if the things aren't working at this level or if you simply feel they're working. But they could be tweaked a little bit. Now is the time to do it. These small studies like this are great because you can really learn a lot about your landscape painting or any sort of genre, because the little changes and these little tweaks you make are going to help you with future paintings as well. You know, it's just a matter of taking the time to look at what you're doing. And then to make those changes without, of course, going too far and the lessons you learned we'll just continue to stick with you as you continue to paint. So here I'm just changing the sky color, adding a little touch of blue there into that, just to see if I can get away with still putting that in there, still keeping, um, the addition of the clouds and that into one group. And I felt like I could push that just a little bit to a blue hue and then keep my clouds in there without chopping things up too much again. You know, sick. This has, I think we decided or counted six groups, which is good again if he started getting into 89 10 groups. In a lot of times, you just haven't simplified it enough. So off with you. Fall back and add the trees. Now I'm working very dry, so I'm not putting much water into these this acrylic, so this these colors air drying pretty quick. And plus, I have film lights on as well. So I'm getting that, um, kind of that violet green hue, and I want to add the trees I painted over on, and then that will pretty much complete my groupings. And then I can decide if that's working well enough to proceed and so on. But getting things right is important. Always take your time. If you have some scrap paper, that's a good idea to keep that handy. And then that way you can always test your colors because a lot of times when you're mixing things up on a pallet, they may look like the right color as you're mixing it. But once you actually added to your painting, you may find that it's too light or too dark, but having a little piece of test paper there, you could put it on and hold it next to your painting sometimes is a good shortcut, so just take your time and make sure you get it right on now to finish it off. I'm just going to add a little bit or define the shape underneath the cannon canopies. A little bit cleaner. I want to lower that a little bit, so it looks like they're The trunks aren't as tall, and that should pretty much give me where I need to be. And here's a look at the final piece, as you can see is very flat, is very graphic looking, and it should be at this stage. This is exactly what we're looking for, and the next lesson we're going to start to break this up with some great Asians.
6. Gradations & Variations Within Masses: Now we will take this to the next level, which is introducing gradations. So with great Asians, what we're trying to do is add subtle changes or shifts in a hue. For example, most guys air slightly darker towards the top of uber picture plane, and then it will get a little bit faded or slightly less blue. We'll say in this case as it gets to the horizon, so that is a great Asian. Now again, with a great Asian, you have to be very careful. You don't want the great Asian to be so intense or such a change that it breaks up the group very, very easy to do that. So if I would have gone a little bit too intense on the blue, then it would have been easy to simply take that the group of the sky and the clouds and make that into, or to take that group and break it up. And then I'm dealing with something different. So you always want to remember Ah, you're simplified masses and then respect it. In some cases, you may need to break it up and it may be OK, but if you don't, But if you can not break it up and still pull it off than a lot of times. That's a better solution. Another great Asian we can look at is the foreground or the ground plane. So in this case, I can. I want to intensify some of the Hughes in the foreground so I can do that by getting something a little bit warmer so I can take a green that is a little more saturated and a little bit a slight shift, if you will, into the yellow family, but again respecting the fact that the ground plane of our, he decided is a group. So when you start adding blades of grass and then you start looking closer at their shadows , and then next thing you know, you start seeing these little flowers and it's you get carried away, so you have to respect the group, and then whatever great Asians you decide to make need to stay within a shift that is comfortable and it doesn't break it up. So here you can see I'm working that a little bit pushing that great Asian so that everything isn't all that same, Hugh, so that's working pretty good and now I will go to the left hand side or the right hand side here. Then add those subtle changes. So again, whenever you're working with things like this, always you think about what you're doing and and what you could possibly. What could possibly go wrong? But then always take time to just look at what at your work. So if you start making these great Asian shifts, it's a good idea to add a little bit and then back away, back away and see if the group still holds together or if it's starting to break up so that those air, this great Asian tool is a wonderful tool toe having to use, and you're going to want to use it to get away from that graphic look where everything is flat, but at the same time you have to use it us appropriately and smartly, or it would be easy to break up your paintings and then it's It's a completely different animal, then you you've got a whole new group of problems. So now I'm pushing the greens a little bit, so I'm trying to figure out if I can add a little splash here in the air of a different shade of green in the distance there, too. Make that mass interesting, but still keep it connected. So now I'm adding a little bit warmer green off, some going to go into the trees here and see if I can capture a little bit better light and all of those canopies. So I want to just warm it up. I want to get away a little bit from that bluish green on these on this particular section of trees. And oftentimes you'll find that what is working in the image or what you're seeing in the image has to be altered a little bit. So these were some of the decisions and that you will have to bake as you're working with your painting. Now what I'm doing is testing some greens in that group cannot get away with pushing a little bit of green in there because there is that row of green that follows along that path. Perhaps I don't want it to be as hard of a line or such a change and color, but I'm thinking a little bit of that green in there might be kind of nice, so I'm just testing the waters a little, a little bit here to see what I can get away with in terms of a great Asian. So these are all different tools in ways you can work great Asians, and now I'm pushing the gradation in the path a little bit. I can see there's a little change and some of it, So I want to see if I can do that without breaking it up. I mean, for the most part, I think all of that's working pretty well. So now I can push it a little bit more and then see if I can push, take it more to a neutral and work with some of the shadows of the grass that's going along the edge here. So that's working pretty good. It's certainly not breaking it up to bad. So, yeah, I think all of these slight gradation changes in additions are enhancing the group's without breaking them up. So here, working with some neutrals, so just basically graying that pink out a little bit and just dot in that in there to get a little variation, So variations are good, they're all over in your images. You're going to see a ton of variations within certain sections. If you look at the millions and millions of leaves, all the blades of grass, there's tons of variation there, and we're going to talk a lot more about that as we move forward. But basically, no, it's one of those areas where artists give themselves in trouble if you don't stick to this very first lesson, which is basically simplifying your masses, so variation is good. Variety is good, but we have to use it, um, sparingly and then very wisely. So now I'm going back in here and I will define that background, the little section of trees, and then we're going to now go ahead and look at the final image, so hopefully you can see how these gradations help Teoh get rid of some of that flat appearance it had, and this makes it a little more interesting, but yet we still have our main groups
7. Common Mistakes: so a few common gradation mistakes is what I will show you here. So let's just take this little section the bottom left quadrant of this painting. It's in the foreground. So it will be easy to get caught up in all the details because most cameras going to pick up all the details and subtle nuances in this area of the photograph. So let's say, for example, um, painting away at this corner and all of a sudden I started looking at my subject. I'm like, Oh, I see this. I see that and I started getting carried away, adding, All of these lighter and darker Hughes that just break up the mass. Next thing you know, you you're ahead of yourself and perhaps you even too late and you realize that things just aren't working anymore. And your beautifully simplified groups are getting broken up. And if you did this all around the painting, you can see how easy it is for things to fall apart. So here the image I cleaned all that up so we no longer have to worry about that happening .
8. Master's Analysis: Now we will have a look at Isaac Levittown, one of the masters that did some fantastic landscapes. I think this will be a great way to learn how the Masters simplified their masses. So starting with a square layout, which is basically what I'm seeing here, I can add a sense of the horizon line or the distant middle ground. And that's going to be my longest line from here. I have to start making decisions, have to interpret what I'm seeing now. He's already done the interpretation for the painting, but I still have to look a his artwork and determined and decide how he group things. Now. This is not about doing exactly the way he did it, but this is ah, good way to try to understand, Know how artists are, use certain techniques. So for me, what I'm seeing there is I have the field, which is coming off to the left, which is a darker green. Then there is that lighter patch on the left hand bottom left hand side. From there, I'm going to get into the middle ground, which is basically a series of trees. Looks like some farmhouses or perhaps, um, Barnes, and they're kind of grouped to the left. And then we have one or two others kind of scattered along the hilltop there. From there, I can decide how I want or how he group the trees again. This is all about interpretation and then making some decisions just simply trying to learn how other artists use this technique. So we know it's not about trying to get it perfect. It's just simply to add on to what you already know. So now I can make a few little changes here to the groups. But as you can see, it's very, very simplified. There is not a lot there, if you know, and understand how to simplify all of the information. So again, this is about reducing things to its simplest form, simplest shape, and you can see that all the trees and the barns and the buildings and whatnot in the background or middle ground. We're all bunched together in a group, so I probably had the sky, the clouds, the middle ground group. So that's three. The field on the left for the lower left hand corner five and the rest of its six. I got up to about six groups of Masses to do the painting. I'm going to start with the middle ground here and come up with a color that I feel will get the job done. So it's fairly dark back in there. So I know that could possibly be one of the darkest values I use in this particular scene. As I look at this, I can see the field they're coming off of that background or the middle ground of the buildings on this slight is lighter, but it's almost the same. That can almost be a great Asian of the middle ground buildings and tree is coming into that row of soybeans or whatever that is. But that could easily be joined together. But now is pretty clear that the patch of green and the lower left here that I'm working on is lighter. So that's going to be a separate group to that, we could see how gradations work now we like if you start to squint, especially at the distant buildings and trees, somehow that can merge, sometimes enjoying other groups. So what here adding the ground plane on the right hand side. I'm starting out with just a basic mid value here. This is going to be a grayscale demo. Then I will go over this with some Hughes later on. But this is just to understand the main groups. And then I will, um I can take it to the next level once I'm ready. Now I'm adding the group, which is the clouds. And if you really look at his painting, there are hundreds of different values and shades, tents and what not going on in those clouds. But at this juncture, we simplify that as best we can in order to to get that group, which is basically what I'm doing there. From there, we know we can do the great Asians and make subtle changes. Later on, however we see fit. But here you can see it's, you know it's coming together pretty quick, you know, not after every single detail in the barn, and nor should you be this is again about simplifying. Simplifying the masses were going back to the very beginning stages of understanding and simplifying masses. I started out with the the drawing, which is nothing more than a basic contour type drawing that defined my groups on then I start to take it to the next level, and all I'm doing here is applying a value, um, to each group. So I'm basically in joining them through values here. So as I continued to work on my group's here, you can see I'm just cleaning some edges up and blending things myself. I feel certain areas just start to break up and they're getting too many different hues and values. I'll just take my brush and is blende
ROBERT JOYNER, Make Art Fun
