Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome to oil painting
with Steve Simon. When you really think about it, painting is a wacky and
bold adventure, why? Because we're trying
to look out into a three dimensional
world that is full of light and somehow
translate that to a two dimensional surface
that has no luminosity. That's a little bit nuts. The question is, as painters, how do we pull off
this sleight of hand? The answer to that is we have to learn a
certain visual language. That visual language is full of principles of death and
principles of light. That's precisely what we're
going to be teaching in this class then be using
this painting as an example. We'll go through those principles
and then we're going to apply those principles to our project that I
hope you join me in. We'll be doing a painting from scratch and applying
those principles and learning how to level up
from slavishly coloring pretty pictures to joyfully and confidently painting with
death, light, and color. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you.
2. Principles of Depth: This is my fourth class in a ten curriculum on oil painting
that I'm working on now. The previous three classes
are not prerequisites, per se for this class. But either doing class three on mixing color
would be very helpful, or having a solid
understanding of mixing color and color
theory would be great. With that in mind,
let's get started. I'm going to be using
this painting to discuss the principles of how to bring light and color into your work and how to lend
a sense of depth to it. Now, this painting was created using the direct
painting method, or a prima method, and I'll be teaching
a class on that in the sixth class of this oil painting curriculum
that I'm working on. But for now, we're
not going to worry about how the painting
came together. We're just going
to take a look at some of the principles
that went into it. Broadly speaking, the principles I'm going to be
talking about can be divided into principles of
depth and principles of light. I'll begin by talking
about principles of depth. To that end, I'm going to place the reference photo that I created the painting from
next to the finished work. Again, we're magicians here. We're trying to create
the illusion of three dimensions on a
two dimensional surface. How do we do that? The most obvious principle in this regard is, of
course, perspective. For the most part, though,
our reference material is obviously in perspective. There's just one area that needs a little
bit of tweaking. And this is a problem
that crops up with photographs
with lens curvature. And we'll take a look
at this area here. The photograph is distorting this temple of series
as it's called. A little bit in the painting, I've rectified that distortion. Now my aim in this
painting is to entice the beholder down the terrace and towards this
temple of series. So to that end, I've also changed
up the composition a little bit by
dedicating more space to the terrace and less to the sky with those basic
foundations established. Let's talk about how we create the illusion of depth
beyond basic perspective. The first principle of
visual language that we're going to introduce is
the quality of edges. Specifically the difference
between a sharp edge and a soft edge and how that
creates the feeling of depth. Let's take a look at
these mountains in the background in
the photograph, and you'll notice that the edges are quite sharp against the sky. Now in visual language, sharp edges do two things. Firstly, they command attention. It's drawing our attention away from the intended interest,
which is the terrace. But more importantly,
in terms of depth. Sharp edges do is to bring
the object forward in space. Soft edges, on the other hand, cause the object to recede. To cause these mountains in
the background to recede. At least in the mind's
eye of the beholder. We will paint the edges soft. Now, the second principle we're going to talk about in terms of depth is value and contrast
of distant objects. This might seem fairly obvious, but atmospheric effects
cause objects to be lighter and of lower contrast than if those objects
were closer to us. As you can see in the painting, I've painted the mountains a much lighter value and
used a low contrast, suggesting to the beholder that the mountains are receding
into the atmosphere. The third principle, in terms of depth, is color temperature. You might recall from our
class on mixing color. These are our cool colors and
these are our warm colors. Principle number three, cool
colors in general recede, whereas warm colors
come forward. Now there are a couple
practical reasons for this. First, why blue colors recede. The gases and vapors in our atmosphere
scatter blue light. The further you look
in the distance, the more you are, in effect, looking through a blue veil. The theory of why warm colors jump forward has to do
with evolutionary biology. The things that are
dangerous or of an emergency nature to us
tend to be warm in color. Like something like
fire, or I don't know, a poisonous snake
are warm in color. These things jump forward in our awareness and correspondingly
forward in space. As painters, if we want
something to come forward, we would paint it with
a bias towards red, orange, or yellow
in the painting. I've exaggerated
this principle a little bit by
painting the terrace, this warm yellow, which
brings it forward in space. But as you can see,
as the terrace recedes back towards
Seres temple, it becomes less warm and it starts to become
a cooler yellow, suggesting that that terrace
is receding in space. The mountains, meanwhile, are painted in cool
blues and greens, making them recede still
further in the composition. The fourth principle is
fairly self evident, but it's surprising
how difficult it can be at times to
put into practice. And this is the notion that
detail reduces with distance. We might be inclined,
for example, to include these details
on the distance shoreline. But doing so really adds nothing to the composition
and actually has a deleterious effect on trying to create this
illusion of depth. It's best just to
omit these details. You can also see that I've reduced the level of details in the statuary as the statues
recede along the terrace. The first statue up front
has a fair amount of detail, and then each statue
going back is rendered with
increasingly less detail. This is also evident in
the tiles on the terrace, that the tiles on the front
have fair amount of texture. As you continue again
towards the seras temple, the texture starts to fall off. The fifth principle
of depth is really just a restating of the
first four principles, but with an emphasis
on the foreground. The sharpest edges, strongest
contrast, warmest colors, and smallest details are
reserved for the foreground. Now this is where
it's instructional to compare the painting to the photograph in
terms of sharpest edges. If we take a look
at the photograph, we find sharp edges
all over the place. This, in visual language, is the equivalent of a whole bunch of people
yelling at you at the same time and
you're not sure who to listen to
in the painting. On the other hand,
the sharpest edges are reserved for this statue, the railing in the foreground, and then also the temple
at the end of the terrace. Now you might be saying, wait a minute, that temple
is not in the foreground. Why would you put a
sharp edge there? The reason for that is more
as a compositional tool. Sharp edges not only bring
the elements forward, they are also used
compositionally to help direct the beholders gaze. If I'm trying to pull the beholder down the terrace
and towards the temple, it's okay to use those
sharper edges to help assist the beholders
gaze in that direction. Now let's evaluate contrast
in the photograph. The contrast between lightest
lights and darkest darks occurs in two places in the
foreground with the railing, and then also in the area
back here by the temple. This creates a little bit of
an undesirable tug of war, which is rectified
in the painting by dialing down the
contrast back by the temple in terms of the warmest colors
residing in the foreground. I've already indicated
these warm yellows being utilized in the
foreground of the terrace. Terms of establishing the smallest details
in the foreground, this had less to do with adding details to
the foreground, then it had to do
with eliminating unnecessary details in the source material
in these locations. And perhaps also throughout the statuary receding back
along the terrace. To recap what we've
studied so far, the illusion of depth is affected through
relative use of edges. Soft edges recede, sharp
edges come forward. Contrast between
light and dark colors reduces with distance. Cool colors recede, warm
colors come forward. And then finally, detail
details are minimized in the distance and become more prevalent as
you come forward. Each of these properties can
also be used as tools to grab the attention
of your beholder and to direct their gaze. Now this is something we're
going to be talking about more in the ninth class
of this curriculum, where we tackle
composition and narrative. But for now, let's just
focus on using them as tools for creating the
illusion of depth. Please join me in
the next video as we discuss the tools for creating
the illusion of light.
3. Principles of LIght: Okay, so we're ready to
study the illusion of light. The first principle has to do with the color of blue skies. Now our atmosphere is
of course, spherical. And it is the
spherical nature of our atmosphere that causes
light to reflect and refract differently
when we're looking at light at the horizon versus looking at light
directly overhead. When painting a so
called blue sky, the sky at the horizon
will appear quite warm and become progressively cooler and darker as you go overhead. To discuss our next
principle of light, we'll need to introduce the
concepts of local color. Ambient light, observed color. Local color is the native
color of the object. In this case, a white table, a green leaf, and a red cherry. The ambient light, or the light that the
scene is bathed in, is a regular white light. And therefore, the
observed colors of each of the objects remain consistent
with their local color. If however, we were to place this table outdoors
under a blue sky, the scene would be bathed
in blue ambient light. This blue ambient
light would influence the observed color in the shadows of each of the
elements in the scene. The observed gray shadows on the table would
become a blue gray. The dark green shadows on the leaves would
become a blue green. The shadow, at least the shadow facing up towards the
sky on the cherry, would become a
deeper violet color. It's important to
understand in this example, that there are, in effect,
two light sources. There's the direct light source
of the sunlight up above, and then there's
this ambient dome of blue light that hits
this scene from the sky. The power of the direct sunlight overpowers the ambient
blue light of the sky. The pieces of the composition
that are in direct sunlight are not influenced by
the ambient blue light, only the shadows are
Summarizing these points, we come up with our
second principle in the creation of the
illusion of light. That is the observed
color of shadows is an admixture of local
color and ambient light. Let's see how this is
applied to our painting. The direct light
of the sun bathes the tiles of our terrace
in warm sunlight. The sun is, in effect, a pin light in the distance, albeit a very powerful one that is hitting our scene from
a specific direction. Meanwhile, there's this
second light source, this blue ambient dome, that hits our scene
from all directions. This ambient light has a subtle, but very important influence on the colors of our shadows. Importantly, it is here
in this interplay of light and shadow that we can unleash some
color creativity. We can't just apply color
willy nilly, though, we have to operate within
two important parameters. First, we have to remain
true to the color, temperature of the
light and shadows, which we've already established. We must remain true
to the values in our reference material,
in the painting. I've exaggerated this
point a little bit by painting the tiles on
the terrace very warm, a very warm yellow. But as you can see, it's approximately
the same value. That is lightness and darkness
as the source material. I've also carried that warmth
through to the temple, the sunlit part of the temple. Meanwhile, I've
painted the shadows on the deck a cool violet. And I've carried that
cool shadow quality all the way through to
the temple as well. You can also see that these cool cast shadows
on the deck are approximately the same value as the value of the shadows
on the reference material. As you can see, we can add dramatically more
interesting color hue to our paintings.
But here's the rub. Once we establish the
color temperatures of both the light
and the shadow, we need to carry those color temperatures consistently throughout
the painting. We need to use our reference material as
our guide for color value. Now let's take a look at the statue in the immediate
right foreground. It is nearly completely
in shadows here again, the ambient light of the
sky will play a role. But there's another
interesting source of ambient light that comes
from the yellow deck. Reflected sunlight
bouncing up off of the yellow deck will influence the observed color
of the statue. Parts of the statue angled down towards the deck will
have a warm bias. The parts of the
statue angled up towards the sky will
have a cool bias. And then the remainder
of the statue will just carry the middle violet tone. Let's rephrase all this into our third principle in creating
the illusion of light. When using your creative
license for color, play with color hue, but maintain consistency of color temperature and
be true to color value. Now if we do a quick
inventory of my painting, we'll see that I'm already in violation of the
principle I just stated. Namely, the color values
in these areas of my painting are not consistent with the values
in the source material. But if you recall from
our previous video, these values were altered, establish a greater
sense of depth. This brings me to my
fourth and last principle of creating the
illusion of light. That is, when applying
the principles of light, we must first establish
all color values. Now in the next two classes
of this curriculum, I'm going to be presenting two distinctly different
methods of oil painting. Both of these methods
have different ways of approaching this
challenge of color value. For now, let's just keep this important
principle in mind. Please join me in the
next video as we bring all these principles together
in our class project.
4. Project - Part 1: Okay, welcome to the
project for this class. We're going to be painting
this scene on canvas. And I'll be painting this
on a 12 by 16 canvas. I encourage you to do the same, or a canvas of the
same aspect ratio, like a nine by 12. You also need to
download the image. You can find it in the
download resources area of the project and resources
section of this class. When you're finished
with the project, please take a photograph
of it and upload it to the my project area of this section to share with
me and other students. Now in this project, we'll put into practice
the principles learned in this class regarding
visual language. Specifically, we'll
be focusing on creating the illusions
of depth and light. We will take this ordinary
landscape photo and infuse it with atmospheric
depth and luminosity. We're going to start by
drawing the image on canvas, now I'm actually
painting it on canvas. If you're comfortable with that, go ahead and do that. I'm using actually a wash of ultramarine blue
and burnt sienna. If you're not comfortable
drawing with your paint brush, feel free to draw
this using charcoal or whatever you're
comfortable with. It's not really that
important that we get the image perfectly
drawn on canvas. Just try to get it roughly to
look like the source image. When you're done, you
should have something that looks roughly like this. It's always good to paint
from back to front. We're going to be starting with the sky just above
the horizon line, just to show you in advance, this is where we're
headed with the sky. As we learned, we want to have a warm sky and relatively
light at the horizon, proceeding to a slightly
darker blue and then increasingly darker
blue as you go overhead. I'm starting with a cool yellow, slightly desaturated
and quite light, maybe like a value of
two at the horizon, maybe with just a little
hint of Serilian blue. Then here I'm slowly increasing the amount of serilian
blue in the mixture. And just blending that together with the layer that's slightly
lower towards the horizon. Then we'll keep that process up. Each time we go a little
higher up from the horizon, we add a little bit
more Serilian blue, that our mixture is becoming a little darker and
a little bluer. Eventually we reach
this stage where we're just straight serrilian with
no more influence of yellow. Now the serrilian isn't just serilian straight
from the tube. It's a light cerrilian, maybe like a number three
on the value scale. Then once we've laid down
that layer of cerrilian, we start adding a little bit of ultramarine blue and adding correspondingly a little bit more each time we go further up. Our sky is getting darker and deeper blue in ultramarine
blue as we go up from here. Now we're ready to start with the green grass on the horizon. Using our visual
language to make this area recede
into the atmosphere. We are going to be
looking through this blue veil of light. Our green is going to be a little lighter and
a little bluer. In other words, a little cooler. I'm also going to use my
synthetic brush here to blend this grassy area
with the sky ever so subtly at the horizon line to
create a much softer edge. Again, objects in the distance
should have softer edges. Then we're going
to start painting the trees in the distance much cooler colors than what we see in the
source material. I'm using a cool green and
a cool violet back here. The values should also be
lighter than the photograph. We're having a lesser contrast between these trees
and the grass than what we see
in the photograph. And this is going to help our background recede
in the distance, recede into the atmosphere. Now we can start working on our next patch of green grass. In general, these big patches of green grass that are starting in the background
and coming forward. Each successive patch
that comes forward should be according to
our principles of depth. Each patch should
start to get warmer and more saturated as
they come closer to us. Of course, we'll be playing a similar game with the trees. The trees should also be getting warmer as
they come forward, more saturated, and there should be more contrast in them
as they come forward. Also, we'll speed this up as you see these principles applied throughout the middle
ground of the painting. Here you can see the greens
really start to heat up. And also warmth and saturation
coming into the trees. But especially a lot more
contrast in value as well. Please join me in
the next video as we work our way into
the foreground.
5. Project - Part 2: Welcome back to the project. When we left off
in the last video, we were just finishing
up the middle ground. We're going to move into
the foreground now. As we make our way
into the foreground, we'll begin with the dark
shadows in the grass. Now these shadows are
pointing up towards the sky, so they will be influenced
by the sky's blue light. Now, the farther the cast
shadows appear from the tree, the lighter the shadow will appear and the softer
its edges will appear. In painting the shadows
this way, you are, in essence, communicating
to the beholder. The light is refracting
around the tree. We'll have the
opportunity to soften those edges once we add the
remainder of the grass. You will recall that
one of the ways we bring elements forward is to paint more detail
in the foreground. We're not actually
going to be painting detail as in blades of grass. What we're going to be doing
is creating a variety of different greens
in the foreground that make it feel like
there's a lot more detail. We're going to use
maybe three or four different greens
in the foreground. And the other ways you recall
that we bring elements forward is add warmth. Your warmest greens, almost bordering on
the verge of yellow. Should be reserved for this space of the grass
in the foreground. Before we start
painting the tree, I want to point out
something about photographs. Cameras will tend to under expose dark objects in
front of light skies. The shadows of this
tree will to our eye, our naked eye appear to be much lighter than what we're
seeing in the photograph. I'll be painting the bark that's in the shadow a little lighter, and I'll be using three
different colors. This desaturated green
color will be used for the shadows that are being influenced by the reflective
light of the grass. This blue color will be used
by the shadows that are being influenced by the
ambient color of the sky. Then the violet color will be used for the
remainder of the bark. The shadows that I'm
painting on the tree now are known as form shadows. They are the shadows
that appear on objects that are facing
away from the light. This is opposed to
the cast shadows that are created on the
grass cast by the tree. The line where light meets dark is known as the terminator. In the area of shadow, closest to the terminator is
known as the core shadow. These core shadows
that I'm painting right now represent areas of the object that are least affected by ambient
or reflected light. They will therefore appear
closest to their local color. In other words, the actual
color of the tree bark, I'm using a burnt sienna
to represent that color. Having established
the core shadows, it's time to add the warm, sun kissed highlights
of the tree. Since these highlights
are in our foreground, you can use two or three different values
for the highlights. Now, there's one more shadow and it's called
occlusion shadow. It shows up as the
darkest shadow, it's the crevices of
a particular form. By adding these, this will allow us another different level of contrast in the foreground and thereby bringing
our tree more forward. There you have our
finished painting. By applying our principles
of visual language, we have first created
much more depth. The hills recede quite
pleasantly into the background, and the foreground
feels much more alive. The tree no longer feels like a cardboard cut out of itself, but instead its form shadows and cast shadows dance and
play with the light. Thanks for painting
along with me. And don't forget to
upload your project to the my project area of the project and
resources section of this class. Thanks again.
Steve Simon, Simon Fine Art
