Transcripts
1. Westcoast Shoreline - Introduction: Hi everyone, My name
is Sarah McKenzie and I'm a Canadian
realist painter. Welcome to my latest
Miss building tutorial. I'm really excited to be
able to walk you through every single step you take to create a beautiful
scene like this. For this class are
going to be painting on a 15 inch by three inch Canvas. Feel free to scale that up or down to whatever size you're
comfortable working with. For this class, we'll be
using the same colors that we used in my previous
miss building tutorials. We'll be using Prussian
green, indigo, titanium white,
and we'll be using Liquid Light jail for a medium to speed up the drying time. You do not have to speed up
your drawing time at all. Feel free to use any other
medium that you have on hand. I recommend linseed
oil or walnut oil. With all that being said, I'm so excited to
walk you through all the steps in this wonderful
miss building tutorial.
2. Westcoast Shoreline - Lesson 1: This is how I've laid on
my palette for this class. I have charcoal gray,
crushing green, indigo, blue, titanium white, and my medium, which is
liquid Light gel. If you do not have these colors, please feel free to
substitute anything that you have on hand
with what I'm using. Just like all my other classes, we'll be using the
rule of thirds to lay out the composition
for our painting. I have gone ahead
and put a piece of Painter's tape across
my bottom thirds line, which is gonna be the horizon. It's not necessary to pull your top thirds
line at this point, we're gonna be doing a lot
of blending work and we'll get lost in the background
really quickly. We can deal with that later. Whenever we get to that point, I'm going to be creating a
really soft focal point in this section of
my painting right on this horizon line is going to really draw the eye in and really create
a beautiful field for the painting using a piece of painter's tape to hold your
horizon line is really handy, especially when you're
just starting out. It saves you from having to take measurements and use a ruler over a wet paint later to
re-establish your horizon line. Before we begin,
I just want to do a quick reminder that the
techniques that I use for this blending really
leave a lot of bristles in your
paint on the canvas. Do not worry about getting those bristles out while
you're painting is wet. After it's fully dry, you'll be able to walk
your hand along and gently brush those bristles
off. No problem at all. So just leave them
where they are as you work through
the painting for now, grab a little bit of
medium and gently work it into the
bristles on your brush. We're gonna be creating
our dark blocking layer right here in the
middle of our palette. Take some green, some
of your charcoal gray, and a little bit of
your indigo blue, and mix them around
on your Canvas. The color that you want is
nice and dark and rich. You don't want it
to be too gray, you do want hints
of blue and green. So just make sure you add
the equal amounts of each. You want this to be
a really thin layer, so make sure you don't
have too much paint on your brush as
you block it in. I'm going to use
this color to create the tree line in the foreground. And I'm going to
put it down here on the bottom because that is
the reflection of the trees themselves with a
medium amount of pressure and a circular motion. Transfer that color all along the top of
your horizon line. Come up maybe a
full brush width, but don't go too high. We're going to be using wipes really soften this
color and move it up into this top
section of our Canvas. You do not need this to be
a thick layer of paint. Keep it nice and thin. And just block in this nice, beautiful deep green where most of our trees are
gonna be sitting. We're really going
to be blending this area in with
lighter colors, so it's not going
to stay this green. What's nice is to
have a nice base here so that if there's peaks
of it's showing through, it looks really realistic. Adding a little
bit more indigo to the color that you just
created on your palette. You don't need any more
medium on your brush. All you want to do is transfer the color that you
have on that brush. In this section, you can use
your circular motions to transfer that color onto the canvas or just
go back and forth. By going back and
forth with my brush. I'm starting to
give the illusion that this is going
to be water and they still beautiful water. And it'll allow me to
start thinking about how my top section is going to be reflecting down in this area. So by going back-and-forth
and just establishing it as a nice still
body of water. And it just gives my
mind something to think about as I'm
working along here. Again, you don't
need a lot of paint. Just transfer that
little bit of paint that was on your brush
into this area. Now if you had to draw your
horizon line with pencil, do not worry if you lost it, you can easily pull your
measurements down after and draw straight line across
using paint instead of a pencil and re-establish it. Once you've covered
all the canvas in the bottom third
of your painting, using the same brush. Now we're going to
start building up some depth in this piece. Based off your reference
image for this painting, you see that there's gonna
be a beautiful stand of trees on either side
of our focal point. In the back, I'm going to create a really nice Misty scene. I might even have a
little hill poking out just to bring a little bit
more attention to this area, but it's gonna be
really soft and muted. So what we're gonna
do is grabbing some titanium white using
that exact same brush. Do not even clean it off. It's the perfect color for
what we're doing next. My paints a little thick. I'm adding a very
little amount of my medium just to thin
it out ever so slightly. You don't want to add too much. If you do happen to
add too much medium to your paint on the palette
here, do not worry, just grab a rag and
wipe off your brush out a little bit more paint to the mixture that
you're working on. And you'll be good to go using this lighter color
on your brush. And what we're gonna
do is start creating the area that we want
our focal point to be. By putting your brush against
the canvas with a lot of pressure in a
circular motion. Transfer this color
into this area. Spend a moment here and just get the feel for this paint
moving across your Canvas. It's a darker color so we don't want to bring
it up too high, but what we wanna do
is start blending this transition area here. I really loved the color, that's all my brushes are really
soft, bluey, green. And it's really
earthy and moody. And I think it's gonna be
a beautiful base layer for the miss that's sitting
behind these trees. After we paint them
in the foreground. There's not much
paint on my brush. And what I'm doing is just using the circular motion
going back-and-forth to bring that paint
all the way across this transition line
that we just put down. By transmission line, I
just mean the area where the paint needs the canvas and there's nothing
else on the canvas. What we're doing is just
creating a new layer of paint that's going to
soften this harsher color. And eventually as we
move up to the top, we'll make it
lighter and lighter. And this is the process
in which we do that. If you feel that you're
running out of paint, just grab a little bit more from your palette and keep using that circular motion to go
across your transmission line. Again, don't go too high
because we need to keep lightening that up as
we move higher up. This is just to
start establishing that beautiful misty
color in our background. After you've done a couple of passes of transfer
that color into the transition area with the same amount of
pressure on your brush, starving your brush down onto that first base color
that we've locked in. Every single time you
go back and forth, drop your brush down
a little lower. What this is doing. It's softening up that
base color for one, but it's also
transferring some of the new color that
we created with this transition color into the darker color that
we already blocked in. This is gonna be the base of a really beautiful
misty seen. Spend your time here
just blending in nicely. Have some fun with
different colors. Don't bring too much of
this dark color backup into the top because you'll
have to rework that. Just keep working on
blending that paint in and softening
that transition. It doesn't have to be perfect. There's gonna be a
lot of other layers involved with this area. But have some fun with it. As soon as you're happy with it, we'll move on to the next
stage of our painting. One thing to remember
when you're painting and reflective seen is that
what you put up top near the horizon line
needs to be transferred down into that reflection. It doesn't have to be exact, but you do need the hint of
it there in order for it to look really realistic
in the end scene. With that same brush, with the same color, I
haven't added any paint. I'm just really gently in circular motions
transferring some of that color into
this water area. Now I'm going to walk
by water to be darker, but we can play
around with that. In the final stages
of the painting. I'm using a circular motion
to transfer the paint into this area just
because I don't have a lot of paint on my brush, It's easiest way to get
the most paint off. Then what I'll do is I'll
go back and forth a few times and just soften that up. Now I have more paint on
my brush than I thought. So there's a few extra lines, just go back and really softly blend them in with
that circular motion. We're gonna be working on this a lot more as we work
through the painting. So this is just a
very rough idea of where the colors
are going to sit. But it's starting
to give your eye the feel for how this
reflection is going to work. If you only have
one blending brush to work through your painting, make sure you take
a rag and wipe off all the excess dark
paint that you can. It's really important not
to wash your brush with any odorless solvent or turpentine or whatever
you're using. If you do, you're going to
have too much of that left on your bristles and
it's really going to muddy up your
entire painting. So if you can avoid it, do not wash your
brush while you're working on each stage
of the painting. What I do to clean off
my brushes if I need to. Just take a rag or paper towel and work the
brush back and forth. Yet to be aggressive with it, just to get all that paint out from the middle of the bristles. It takes a little bit of time, but eventually you will get
most of that paint out of your brush and you'll be able to use it for the lighter sections. Instead of taking a fresh brush to work on the next layer, I'm going to keep
using this one to show you just how easy it is once you clean that rush off to keep working ahead
with the lighter colors. With that same
brush you're using. Take some titanium white
and mix it into that area. The palette that you've been building up that base layer on. I take a little bit of medium, you do not need a lot. And again, you want to keep
this paint a little thicker. You don't want it
to be too thin. Just coat the bristles
with that lighter color. What we're gonna be doing is we're going to start building more of a misty field in
this transition area. I'm coming up about a brush
width for my horizon line. I'm pushing my brush into my Canvas with a
lot of pressure. As you can see, there's a lot
to give to those bristles. Again, as you work
through a Canvas, you do not need to
worry about damaging your canvas by putting a
lot of pressure on it. These canvases are pretty
tough and durable, so do not worry about
putting that pressure on your brush to achieve these different
looks with the mist. Using a small circular motion, I'm going to go back-and-forth
and just transfer some of that light color
into this area here. By transferring the
color into this area, I'm starting to get the
feel for a focal point. I'm gonna pull this down
into this section and we'll be building
trees in front of it to really create
the focal point. But I'm starting in this area
for that reason exactly. Just to start establishing the focal point behind what
will be the foreground. Going back and forth
about circular motion, we are now doing the
next transition line. So we're the blank
canvas meets the color. That's where we're working. You might want to
go back and add a little bit extra
titanium white to your brush if you
feel that there's too much dark color being
pulled up in this layer. You do want this
next layer to be much lighter than the one below. So just be mindful of
that as you blend, your brush will pick up this darker color as you
move across the canvas. So if you see that
there's not much of a difference between the two colors that you're working with. Let's add some more
white to your brush. Adding a little bit
more to my brush. Just keep pulling your ready
cause a transmission line. I'm noticing that this
color is still pretty dark. So I'm getting a little
bit more titanium white and a little
bit more medium. And I'm just going
to transfer that off my brush into this area.
3. Westcoast Shoreline - Lesson 2: Before we start blending
this transition line between the color we
just put down and what was already on our Canvas. Make sure you clean
off your brush, get all that excess paint
off of your bristles. You do not need a fresh brush, which you do need
is a brush that has very little paint on it. So work off all that paint into your paper towel or a rag
however you're doing it. And once you get most
of that paint off, then we're going
to start blending in this transition area. Do not add any paint to
your brush for this, this is a really important tip in terms of this
blending technique. By having very limited
paint on your brush. You're allowing your brush to pick up the paint
that's already on the canvas and blend it really beautifully on
the transmission line. I have barely any
pressure on my brush. And I'm going back-and-forth
with very gentle pressure. They're going back-and-forth
with that pressure. I'm coming down
about half an inch every single time I go back
and forth across the canvas. And I'm just transferring, I'll tiny bit of color into each path as I go down
towards the horizon line. Then I'm gonna come
over here and you can do the same thing on this side. Minimal pressure,
circular motion. What you're doing is
you're starting to really create a three-dimensional
look to this mist. Whenever we do our trees
in the foreground. It's kinda look really
believable and really accurate in the background,
which is what we want. If you turn off your brush, you'll see that there's a lot
of dark color on there now, just from working this area, makes sure that if
you come back up here to rework this area, you clean off your brush. First. You don't want that dark pink coming into your
light paint up top here with the side of
the brush that was just blending all that area
above the horizon line. Transfer some of
that darker color into this area in
our reflection. Very subtle. You do not need a lot. Like I said before, you do
really need to remember to transfer what you do up, top down into this area. We're gonna be adding
some darker colors in this section to really make it pop in our final
stages of the painting. So don't worry if you get a little too much light
color in this area, but you do want to
transfer some of it. Just to help make this area
look really realistic. In the end product, I'm gonna be using a fresh brush for this top section
of the painting, just so that my weights
really pop in this class. Again, if you only
have one brush, just make sure you clean off all that dark color
as best you can. Grabbing some
medium on my brush, I'm actually just going to
pick up titanium white. I'm not going to add any of our base color or our
little blending color in. I'm going to run
this titanium white right across the
top of the canvas. And then we'll blend that
down into these areas. By blending the white down, we're not going to
lose his beautiful bright contrast up here, which is really going to balance
out the entire painting. Make sure that you have your bristles basically
coated and paint. Again, this is the base
layer and you do not want too much paint on that brush just enough to pull it across. What? That circular motion. And a fair amount of
pressure on your brush. Transfer that white paint into this area along the
top of the page. Just try and make
sure you get as much white paint on
this area as possible. We're going to be
wiping off our brush, just like we did in
this transition down here and starting to blend
this transition area. But you don't want too
much of this color coming up much higher
than it already is. So with our brush
you're using right now, just try and block in the
blank part of the canvas. We'll come back to the
transition areas and stuff. Just like we did before. I want you to wipe off
all the excess paint from your brush
because we're going to start blending in the
top transition line. So back-and-forth on your rag. Take off all that excess paint. And then starting on this side with a medium amount
of pressure on your brush in a
circular motion right? Along the entire transmission line you just created between the white and our base layer
that was already blocked in. Work your brush across the canvas to start blending
those two lines together. This is going to take a
little bit of elbow grease, so a little bit of patience. But it's gonna make it really worth it in the finished piece. Once you get over here, increase the size of your circles as you back across your painting. What this is going to
do, it's going to pull. More of that base
color up into the sky, creating a nicer, smoother transition between
all the colors. Go back-and-forth
in that area a few times to really knock
down those brushstrokes. If there's any that are visible, just you really want them to really blend into one another. You don't want to see circles. You want it just to look
like a seamless color. So it takes a few passes. After you've finished
those passes, if you look at your brushes, see that one side is
nice and light and the other side has that dark
color. We're just blending. Turn your brush over so
the light side is down. You'll see a little area where your darker paint is meeting
this light paint up top. That's where you want to take that light color and with
gentle circles go all the way across blending in that
really subtle transition line that might even be really
hard for you to see. But by going back-and-forth
and then dropping your brush about half
an inch each time you go back and forth. You're really
creating a beautiful, seamless missed for
the background. Don't go down too
low because there is a light color on your brush. But feel free to use
that same amount of pressure just really gently For call those
transmission lines until it starts to
feel like you're getting that misty
look to your painting. I've really loved the feel of the myths so far
in this painting. And you don't need
to add a lot to make a really powerful statement
within your piece. I'm actually going to leave
this background just as it is and use these trees to create the focal point in
the foreground. Now we get to dive into the more detailed
parts of the painting, which is a really fun part. I'm going to be building up trees that I'm going to slightly push into the background
in both of these areas. We don't need a
really dark color. In fact, the color
that we want to use a slightly lighter
than our base color. This is going to
give the illusion of these trees are further in the distance and almost
fading into the mist. So you don't need a ton
of detail on these trees, but we do need to make
them look like they exist. So I picked up my number two, Winsor and Newton flat brush. And that's what I'm
going to be using to build on these trees in the background with equal
parts, indigo and green. Create a new color and a clean
section of your palette. Mix it around with your brush. You don't want a ton of
color on your brush. You just push it
into another area of your palette to get that
excess paint off if needed. But you do want to
establish a nice, deep rich bluey green color. This is gonna be
what we're using to create our trees in the scene. What we're doing is
just, just lightening up that base color ever
so slightly so that the trees in the background
look like they're further away from what we
create in the foreground. Trees in the foreground
and nice and dark. And as they move back, they become lighter and lighter. So this is what we're working
on those lighter trees, I find it really helpful
to start building my trees near the focal point, what I wanna do is
I want to create a tree that's going to be to the right of this focal point. So I remember that as I'm working to the right
or to the left, where I need the eye to rest. At the beginning of the class, I mentioned not worrying about blocking in your
top thirds line. The reason why I said that was because we're
gonna be building so many layers on top of it though would have
been lost anyway. As we work through this
next stage of the painting, really important to
be mindful of where that line sits on your Canvas. I'd also just drawing a line
across your painting once you can do is just have a
general idea of where it sits. Just pull down your measurement
from the top and create a little mark on your canvas with your paintbrush
on either side. Doesn't have to be completely accurate if you don't want to. But what that allows
you to do is to see where your tree should sit. As you build them up
in the foreground. You don't want trees way up here because it's
really going to throw the eye off and really
unbalanced the painting. But this will allow you
a little reminder as to where you really want to
start building your trees. As we work through
this next layer with that color we just
created on our palette. I'm going to start to the
right of my focal point. This is where I really want my eyes to be drawn
in the painting. What I find really helpful when I'm working through
a piece is to create either side so that I can work out and away from it. As we build up this
background layer of trees, we're going to re-establish the midst in front of
them a little bit. So don't worry if
you lose some of that as we're
creating these trees, you do not need to
spend a lot of time working on the details
for making them just perfect because most
of them are going to get pushed right into
that misty background. Just to establish
the shape of them. Add some different heights. Thicknesses of those trees makes your branches
are not all the same. Every tree is unique. It's gonna make
your force a really realistic is if you make sure that you switch it up with every tree ever so slightly
doesn't have to be huge, drastic changes just enough
to make each one look like it's its own
little ball of awesome. But just keep
adding these trees. Moving from the focal
point to the right. Now I've just added
a random assortment of trees in this area, and I'm going to add
a few dead trees throughout this
background layer just to create a little bit
more appeal for the i, just something for it
to be drawn to that's not like the other
thing is there. Everything is gonna get pushed right back into the misty layer. So these do not need
to be detailed, but just make sure
you add this variety in this layer of trees here. It's really important because even though it is gonna be
blended into the background, little pieces of it will be
popping up through the mist. And that's where you get the realistic feel
within these paintings.
4. Westcoast Shoreline - Lesson 3: After you're happy with where your trees are in this section, before we use your
blending brush and push them into
the background, will establish
where trees are on this section to the
left of our focal 0.1 thing I like
to do when I start an area of trees is start
with the tallest tree. I have my little mark
here on the side of my Canvas to where my
top thirds line is. So I know just how
tall I should make it. I'm going to start
this tree just above that top third line. And I'm going to pull
down my tree trunk right down to my horizon line. And I'm going to start building this cluster of trees
from this point. Again, I'm going to
make them all different shapes and sizes and heights. I'm going to leave
a little bit of gap between some of the
clusters of trees. But I'm going to fill
up this area with some background forest that
just feels right to my eye. So I'm just going off instinct. You do the same. Have some fun with this. Don't feel like you need to do the exact same thing I'm doing. These backgrounds sections are perfect opportunities for
you to really practice your skills and
just to experiment because a lot of it gets pushed back with the blending brush. So you can't make any mistakes. It's just learning. And that's what I love about all these different
layers of trees because there's an
opportunity for growth in every single section you
work on in this painting. And some sections like this
allow you to really play around and get creative and see what works and
what doesn't work. Because you get to push
it all the way with your blending brush,
no matter what. So the perfect spot just
to have a little bit of fun and really let
your creativity flow. I'm going to keep building
up this section of trees. And once I get it blocked in, I'll explain to you the
next stage of this process. If you've taken one of my
forest tutorials before, you know how important it is to really make sure you
have number of trees. Because these are
background trees. You don't really have
to worry about it. It just so happens that
I did have 15 trees on this side and seven
trees on this side, which is great
because that's just really pleasing for the eye as, as dancing across your
finished painting. The next step of our
painting is going to be pushing these trees
into the background really gently and
making them look as though the mist is
resting in front of them. Using the brush
that I use to block in the light section
of your background, wipe off all the excess paint. We're going to be using
this brush to gently push this layer of trees
back into the mist. So with absolutely
no extra paint on your brush and
having wiped off all the excess paint with
very minimal pressure. And in real gentle
circular motions. You're going to start rubbing
this brush gently across that layer of trees
that you just created. Now, many of you might
be cringing, say, Oh, I just spent so much time
creating those trees. Well, don't worry,
we're gonna be adding more trees
in front of this. This is one of those
tricks to creating a really believable and
realistic misty scene. You need to create
layers and depth. And this is one of the processes
to be able to do that. After you've really gently
push these trees back, if you look at your brush, you'll see that
there's a darker color on that side of the brush. Flip it over so the
lighter side is down and go across the tops of those trees so that you don't transfer too much of
this darker color up until that sky area. You don't want too much dark up here because we work
so hard to create that nice bright pocket of light above or this treeline is. So just be mindful
that you don't have too much dark paint
on your brush when you do the blending
workup there. Before you do any
more blending work in this background section, make sure that you take all the excess paint off
your paint brush. I'm going to actually grab
a fresh brush to show you what I'm gonna
be doing to make sure that this really looks Misty and pushed
into the background. I'm taking a little bit of
that lighter color that's on my palette and pushing it into
the bristles of my brush. I do not want a lot
of paint on my brush. In fact, if you
have excess paint, make sure you wipe it off. You want a really
thin layer with very gentle circular motions. I'm going to go over the top of these trees with this color. When I get to the end
of those treetops, I'm going to take my
brush off the canvas, turn it around so that the lighter color is facing
the canvas of my brush. And then go back across with
gentle circular motions, barely any pressure on my brush. And really softly push those trees further
into the background. After you go across
the top of the trees, move down half a brush width. I think continue
the same process. You do not want a lot of
pressure on your brush. If you happen to put too much
pressure on your brush and those trees just get wiped
right out of existence. Don't worry about it. You can go back, rebuild them in practice again. That's the fun thing
about oil paint. You have so much freedom to explore and fix anything that needs to be fixed
and play around. You're not stuck
with whatever you put on the canvas in
that very moment, you get to really
transform your painting and really learn as you
work on your painting. I'm just going back
and forth and up and down with that real gentle
amount of pressure, pushing these trees right
into the background. An important step
after you're finished blending in the trees
over here is to go back with your
detailed brush and add a little bit more
detail to the trees. The detail that
was really pushed off the trees when
you're blending them in, taking a little bit of that
color that you use to put the trees into that section at some to your detailed brush, then wipe off most of
that excess paint. The reason for this
is this has changed. This has become a little
bit more of a muted color. If you went immediately
in with a dark, it really stand out and contrast against the layer
we just blend it in by going back and gently adding a little bit of
detail to these trees. You're really making them pop in the background really what
makes him look realistic? And that's a really important
part to this missed work. You don't have to
add a ton of detail. Just recreate the trunk where
it might have been blended, write out or add a few
more limbs or re-establish the top of the tree with
its funky little branches. Which is spend
some time here and just recreate certain aspects of that tree so that it can
show through the misty layer. We really want this
section of trees to be closer to the
foreground is if it's a little island or inlet coming out and that this is
further in the background, having the midst and
this focal point in this area is really going
to help achieve this because we can
make it look as if the mist is coming in behind this layer of trees and
settling in front of this one. Instead of blending this tree
into the background a lot, I'm gonna do it very subtly
and I'm going to add another layer of trees
in this section. So we don't need a
lot of pressure on our brush as we do the
blending work in this area. I'll show you what I mean. So using the exact same blending technique
that we just use, with a lot less pressure. These trees are going to just be really softly pushed back. We don't want to lose a lot of detail or a lot of
their darkness. I'm just going up and down with gentle circular motions
and just softening all those harsh edges
because I am going to build a new layer trees
in front of them. It's going to help me establish the focal point is going to be really pleasing for the eye. And that's creating a
really nice depth of field because this layer is
lighter and pushed back. This one is darker and
more in the foreground. That's really going
to pull the eye into this focal point
that we want with barely any pressure on your
brush and make sure there's no dark paint or excess
paint on your brush. Pull some of that Misty sky colored down over top
of your tree tops. What you're doing is softening those edges and not transferring any dark color
where you don't want it. This is a really
helpful technique to use to create really
realistic missed. I'm wiping off my brush after every single pass that I make. I have barely any pressure on my brush as I make each pass. But I'm really softening
those treetops without losing much of the detail
in this layer. So play around with
that for a moment. Again, minimal pressure
and make sure you try not to get too much dark
color up into that area. It's okay if the
dark color transfer is in-between the trees, It's going to look like a really beautiful shrouded missed. But you don't want it coming
up into your lighter area. I see some of mine
has come up in this area and that's
totally fine. I'm going to clean off my brush, get all that excess paint off, and just work that area in a circular motion not
going over the trees. This is just the light area. And I'm just going to blend
those little pieces of dark color that made it into my misty area
away from the trees. But it's very subtle. You do not want to push
this too far back. If you do push them
back, don't worry. Take your detailed brush, rebuild the trees with that
darker color and try again.
5. Westcoast Shoreline - Lesson 4: There's only a few
more things to do to this painting before
it is finished. The first thing I'm gonna
do is I'm going to take off my piece of Painter's tape. And now you can see that bright white horizon line underneath that blank canvas. If you didn't use
tape and you need to reestablish your life. Go ahead and do that now, just take your measurement down. Use a straight edge and transfer a little
bit of white paint along that straight edge so that it's a straight line,
but it's not pencil. You'll be able to
blend that away really easily and you won't even know it's there by the
end of the painting, but it will allow you to know exactly where your horizon
is supposed to sit. With your light blending
brush that has been cleaned off or with
a fresh brush. Pick up some titanium
white on your bristles. Do not add any medium. You want this to be a little bit harder to move across the
canvas because you want it to really pull
that white over towards the right side in
this focal point area, right on your horizon line. Put a lot of pressure
on your brush. Flip your brush so that the bristles are pointing down
towards your horizon line. This is how you want to work
your brush with a lot of pressure across this little
section of your horizon. The reason why I say that just because you
don't want the brush to pick up a ton of paint in
this giant circular motion. If you can find a
way to just transfer a little bit of paint and
blend just a little bit. Use that to create this
little section here. And just go back and
forth blending it in. Now you can still see my horizon line from my tape underneath this
layer and I like it because what that
means is it's going to be really prominent and bright and beautiful
for this Miss D section. So I am happy it's there. But what my goal is right now is to make it feel
like this mist has fallen in behind
these trees and is flowing out into the area
in front of the island. This side, I'm going to keep
it a little bit darker. I want this side to be more like because this
is closer to us. So I want that miss to
feel like it's resting inner layer behind what
will be this focal point? So just work that area with your brush and transfer some of that white paint
into that section. Grabbing a fresh brush
with barely any pressure. Generally transfer some of that paint that
you just put down that nice bright color into
the area below on the water. You don't want much
pressure here. And what we're doing is we're just establishing what looks like mist settling
on top of water. I'm just going back and forth. And I'm transferring
some of that white pay down into our darker layer. As we do this and we go back
and forth with your brush, you're making a look
really realistic. After you're happy with how this feels as if it's settling
on top of the water, come back up and
starting on this side. But that same brush, gently, slow circular motions soften the transition line between the base layer of trees we
created and that layer missed. We just put along
the horizon line. We're just making
it look super soft and really realistic
and doing this. So take your time
here and just really allow gentle pressure on that brush as it
works in this area. So the final thing I'm
gonna do just to finish off this misty section is
grab a clean brush or wipe off your lighter brush
so there's no paint on it with a circular motion
in our focal point area. Just work this
corner transition. What you want it to look
like and get a feel for is pulling down around a tree so we know that trees are here. We want to make it
look realistic. So by doing that,
it's almost like a horseshoe shape I'm
creating with my brush. I'm pulling that Ms down and
around and across the water. I'm starting up here. Circular motion. And I'm coming
around those trees. It just creates a
really realistic look to this section of the painting. So practice that
play around with it. And soon you're going to see the midst really feel as if it's coming around that corner and really settling
in the foreground. Picking up your dark
tree color with your darker blending brush
that you've been using, transfer some of that paint just into the foreground here
along that horizon line. I have my brush, so the bristles are pointing
down in a circular motion. I'm just going to fill in
that white canvas has exposed from where my teeth I was
holding my horizon line for me. This beautiful deep color is really important for this
part of the shoreline. I'm going to take my brush and gently transfer a little
bit of that color. About one inch below
my horizon line, I can have a little bit of
mist coming in front of this little outcropping of
trees and the painting. But I do want this darker color. To pick up what the reflection would be from the shoreline. I'm going to transfer a
little bit over here. Now. I don't want too much
darker color over here because there isn't too much happening
in terms of reflection. It's really misty,
moody over there, but over here, I do want that
hint of a dark reflections. So taking that color that we just put on the base
of our horizon line, just transfer a little bit of it down into your reflective scene. After you're finished
that bit of brushwork, grab your detailed brush once again and fill it
with a beautiful, dark, rich tree color
we've been using. You don't want any white
paint on it right now. It's going to
collect some of the white paint that's underneath. So you don't have to
worry about that, but you do want just the
darkest color on your brush. Now these trees are
gonna be the ones closest to the viewer
in the foreground. And I think I'm just going
to add a few here and there to really make
this section pop. I'm just picking a
random spot to start, and I'm just going to
create a few trees. In this section. This is the final bit of tree work we're gonna be
doing in this painting. So take your time with it,
have some fun with it. Really explore all
the different shapes of trees you can make
with your brush. One of the things I like
to do with my brush is start on that tree
trunk line that I established and just roll the brush away and
off the canvas. It creates a really
neat branch like shape. Now I like to do that
down and then I just add little details the corner of my brush after I established
that little brush rule, one thing I'd like
to do is just do straight branches
with nothing on them. Just a couple of twigs. Just creates unique
looking trees, which is how they exist
in the natural world. Really focus on making sure that your trees are not
all the exact same. Your painting won't
look very realistic. So don't be scared of making
things look different. Very important. So just go ahead and paint
a few trees in this section that sit right with you and make your eye happy
when you look at it. Stand pack from your painting. Get a feel for how the balances. Makes sure that
whatever amount of trees you put in this
section is an odd number. It's really important
just because the eye loves odd numbers. And it's those little
things that make a big difference when it comes to creating a realistic
looking for a scene. As I paint each tree
in this section, I take the time to
stand back from my canvas and see
how it's feeling, how the balanced
fields and how the energy fields in terms of how the flow of the mist is
coming through the piece. If something feels does not completely balanced
with in your painting, this is the stage now to really play around with it
until it feels right, until you're happy with it. Don't do this final
detail work until then because you'll have to redo all the detail work if you decide to fix something
in the background. So really take the time to just find happiness
within your painting. Just be happy with it. Work at these different sections until they feel right
within your soul. You just stand back and you have that moment you like,
look what I created. This is awesome. Don't rush it. Take your time with it. It doesn't need to look
anything like mine. In fact, I hope it doesn't. I hope it looks exactly like you hoped it
would in your mind. So these techniques can be taken into every
single Landscape, be that you create
from here on out. So you're just creating
tools that you can build off of and work from and establish yourself even further in your
skill set as an artist. So I have four trace here. I'm going to add, I think
three more in the foreground. I think I want these
trees to come out a little bit further
into this section. Getting a little
bold because I do like this and I'll
have to fix it. Not really happy
with these trees, but I'm going to do it, I'm just going to go for it. Nothing ventured,
nothing gained. So I'm going to have a tree. I think I'm going to
make this more of a dead standing tree right here. Just something unique and interesting for everybody's eyes when they taken this piece. For dead standing trees,
I just randomly put little branches coming out at different angles, at
different thicknesses. He doesn't have to
be a ton of detail. It's really subtle. But I really like it. Now one thing to remember
as you work through this little foreground
section is that you want these trees to be darker than any other trees in your scene. So if you feel that these
trees are kind of becoming the same colors of the trees
that you just pushed back. Add a little bit
more darker paint. It can really mess up the depth of field and your
painting if you're not really aware of the different
shades that you're using, and make sure that the trees in the background are lighter
than those in the foreground. Just adding a little bit down
here on the horizon line. I think I'm going to add
a tiny little tree here. Little, little guy. I don't want this tree
to be really prominent and have huge branches
and thick trunk. I want it to be just a
delicate little tree because he's standing
right on the water's edge, hanging out on the point. I think it looks really cool. And the finished piece. Okay, I'm going to add one
more tree and I think I'm gonna put it right in
between these two. I like having groups of odd
numbers of trees together. I think, especially
because this is right on our focal point,
right in this area. Having an odd number
of trees right here is maybe I'll put it right here. I'll put one more right here. Having an odd number of trees in this section is just going to be really pleasing for the eye. This will be my final tree
that I paint with you today. Feel free to stay in this
section for as long as you need to create a little pocket of force that you're happy with. But after I get this tree and
I'm just gonna do my final little passive missed in front of this
foreground section. And then I'll leave you
to finish your painting. I'm really happy with how this painting
has come together. I really liked my focal point and how the eye is
drawn towards it. I like how soft the mist is. I love how these trees are
pushing the background. It's just really
sitting right with me. The final thing I'm gonna do
for this painting is take a clean brush and rub it in
this section right here, a focal point where that light
color and this is sitting. I'm just saying, but ever so little amount of paint
on my brush by doing that. And I didn't go into then
with a jiggling motion. Walk my brush along the horizon line in front
of my focal point here. All I'm doing is transferring
a tiny bit of that color into this area where the
water meets the treeline. Just creating the illusion of a little bit of mist resting on the water surface so that it looks like it matches
the rest of the scene. You do not want that miss to be super bright and
powerful over here. You want them to be settled in this background area
and our focal point. You just want to
soften up these lines and pull a little bit
of that lighter color across to just create that
balance within your painting. I'm going to leave my
painting here and allow you to play around with yours
until you're happy with it. Thank you so much for joining
along on this fun tutorial. And I can't wait to see
you in the next one.
Sarah Mckendry, Canadian Realist Painter
