Oil Painting Tutorial - Night Lights

1. Introduction: Ect So s. I got a hole. Hi, guys. Welcome to my studio. Today, I'm going to show you how this painting came to life. I will guide you step by step through the process, how I painted this nocturnal view on the harbor. And simultaneously, I'm hoping to make it possible for you to paint something similar and have fun. This is not going to be the typical tutorial lecture. I am of the opinion that step by step manuals about how to create art are not only unbearably poring, but also not really helpful. I think that everybody should be able to find their own muse and enjoy their own creational process. For that, I will try to share with you some tricks which will hopefully help you to get the result which you will be happy with, which will look professional while having fun in the process. Let's get started. Okay, guys, let's get started. What you see on the screen is our reference photo. This is the image which we will be painting. I took it during Sylvester night in German City of Sherine. But before we start, I have a bit of theory for you. It is useful to know in general before painting. There are three basic characteristics to any painting, and it is useful to clarify those beforehand. They are as follows. First of them is composition or focus. Second, are values, dark and light. And the third one, are colors. Let me introduce them one by one. 2. Focus: First of those is composition or focus. Simply explain, this is where your attention goes when you first see the image. This is the path your eye travels while looking at it. These are the most noticeable aspects of the image. The objects, their placements, their size, how they interact with each other. These are all aspects of composition. When looking at the image, we are not seeing everything at the same time. We first see the most contrasting, most noticeable part. Then we move to the second, most noticeable part, then the third one, and then maybe we explore some details. The reason is that our eye simply cannot comprehend everything at the same time. If we would make into the detail everything, that would become too overwhelming. When painting from a photo, we already have the most aspects of composition given. However, we still have to decide where do we want the focus to go and how do we want to guide an observer's eye throughout our image. Another way of thinking about it would be if we would have to eliminate the image in one main era and two supportive ones, which ones would that be? To clarify this, I have prepared for you a small exercise. For that, you will need to take a sheet of paper and a pencil. And now look at the picture and draw areas which your eye lands first, second, and third. Feel free to pose a video for as much as you would need. When you are ready, I will show you my own process of going through this exercise and we can compare. See you later. Time to draw together. What really helps is to keep your eyes half closed. With that, what gets better image? What is the important part and what can be omitted. We have a horizon, and then we have the lights which go like this. I set, I will do it. Very rough because the point of this exercise is not to make magnificent copy of this photo, which we will all put behind the frame and keep forever. The purpose is to see what is important and what we can keep bloody in future painting. Here goes to show Here will be the boat. The point of the boat is that it stands out because of the light behind it. It does not stand out by itself, and here are the lights exactly like this. Another important part is the tree. The tree is also not completely detailed everywhere. It's good to know that we draw the branches. All right. The idea will be that when the observer sees the image, the first, they will look here. Then the eye will travel direction here and see and enjoy hopefully this part, Then we can just balance everything out with a few details here in the corner. We complete a triangle. With the three branches pointing here, we will lead the eye back to the beginning. It will be triangular movement, how hopefully the viewer will see the final picture. All right. I think I can live with it. I think I'm. Let's move on. 3. Values: The next lecture in our lesson is about values. Darks and lights. I think it is safe to say that values are the most underrated aspect of painting. However, they are incredibly important. It is a foundation on which any painting stands. Here you can see example, what sort of magic can be achieved if values are done correctly. This image is highlighting mostly lights and leaving the rest with the darker shades of gray. But still the effect is pretty cool. Here you can see how the image looks. When the emphasis is on dark. You can recognize very well which areas of our image are the darkest. To illustrate exactly the values in our reference photo, I have used the filter which breaks it down to different shades of gray. As you can see. To the right side, you can compare with the gray scale, and you can see where exactly are the darks, where exactly are the Lights and where are the middle tones. This is all very valuable information for our painting later. You can also see exactly to what degree. The blacks whites and grays are represented within the image. Typical mistake in values would look something like this. You can see that neither lights nor darks are represented on its full scale, and the resulting image looks flat. For our next exercise, I would like you to take a pencil and try to draw the photo as you can see it. While trying to represent all the values in the picture as closely as possible. Use the gray scale to the right as your guide. Do not get discouraged if your image does not look like the photo. The purpose of this exercise is to get a feeling to different nuances between lights and shadows. Pose a video for as much as you need. After you are ready, we will move to the next chapter color. 4. Colors: I The third part of our three preparatory chapters, we will cover the last aspect of any painting colors. First, let me introduce you to my brushes. I have used altogether three sorts of brushes. This pointed oil painting one, rounded brush number 12, and the white brush from homeware to cover big areas of the painting. For painting itself, I'm using pure linseed oil. For underpainting, you can use any other less mineral spirit you may want. However, it is not necessary. And now, please don't faint. This is my palette. For me, it works, but if you are on a less me side, please feel free to get yourself normal. A. So as we can see in the picture. There are all kinds of shades of blue purplish tones, so what we can see. We can take as a base. C out blue. I will show you on the canvas because I assume it will be better than in my crazy cotic palette. So this we will use for basics. We can go from there. And then from there. We can use shades of azure blue. H. Prussian blue. It's not necessary, but it is good to have because the majority of this picture is in some shades of blue. The more shades of blue we have to work with, the better the picture will be. But Prussian blue is very strong. It's pigment is very aggressive. When you are working with Prussian blue, you need to be very careful. Otherwise, it will take over all the other colors. You can see the pigment is very strong. And at the end, this one is amazing. This is a light bloom. Here, I can show you on camera, and it works as a fantastic way to make the color light without having to use white. This Of course, I will need white. Now, another side node. This is a titanium white. It is extremely important, which white will you choose for your painting. Titanium white is a bit similar like a Prussian blue. It's pigment is very strong. You will be able to make a beautiful, shiny white surfaces with that, and it covers very much. When you are using it, you need to be careful to tin it down and use only a little bit. Otherwise it will take over. I did not use any other shade of white for this painting, just for the simplicity of. Then very important for this painting, I have used cadmium orange for the lights, and for the reflections. The block here. And I have also used brilliant rows. But I can imagine any type of the purple red color would do the job. Doesn't need to be exactly this one if you don't find it. You can see, it's very rich, very strong. And the red deep red from this massive monster tube. So here we are. I haven't used black as much, but I had a bit for the horizon line mostly and for some branches. But I will show you how to substitute black. Some of the lies have some green in them as well, so green we can use two. Of course, what would we do without a yellow. This is Camo. It's poisonous. So please Do not eat. Let me put it here. And now, it is important to understand that each color has its value to its brightness, means the consistency of the pigment and then the value. The droness of lightness of the color itself. Rule one when mixing the colors. Use as little white or black as possible. Because what happens if you use white and black is that it sucks out the pigment and the result will be a little bit gray. If you want to have beautiful bright colors, try to lighten with other colors like for example, this blue or yellow, depending on the situation. As you see, a. Color before painting needs to have just right consistency. So especially for the beginning layers, we do not mind that it is liquid, so we can make a really thin layer of paint like this. You can see we can also cover picker surfaces, at some point, we will to mix it. We will t this tool. Once we are happy with the consistency and thickness, we will just enter and now First, first mixing result is not as I wished. What I do, I wipe I wipe my brush, and I continue mixing a step further. If it is a little bit closer to what I wish, the color is. Darker than this one, lighter than this one. We can of course mix much further. If we continue what we get is this beautiful scale of shade. You can do this with any color. It's not difficult and a set because we have the underpainting. It's not as important. Don't worry if it doesn't work for you perfectly. What is important for this particular painting we have that you learn before starting painting to tin the color. The surface you are making is very, very. Very, very tin down. A lot of oil, lot of bed oil, and not as much color. We do not want to have big layers of colors places and if then only very, very sporadic. Basically, the trick is really just to use a bit more of oil than you would think you need. Now, you can see this brussian blue. This brussian blue is very strong. It wants to take over. And dominate the palette. But it's also beautiful color. So when we want to use it, it needs to be really tinned down for our purposes, then we can mix it, for example, here. Other shades of blue or even lighten it like this. You can see. It may be probably causing some struggles in the beginning, but it comes with a practice. Just before you start painting, try to get yourself a palette or aboard piece of paper, and just practice mixing the colors. Practice tinning down the colors like this. You will get, very in layer. Because of transparency. You can see because my brush was dirty, I'm immediately getting blue from this white as well. But I don't care because I'm just exploring the shades. So if this is the scale with which we can already work nicely. And the same we can do with the lights as well and with. Just be very careful to to brush properly. Also have a clean oil, not like me right now. Before processing to any lighter color. As you see, I'm having so much oil on my brush. So much oil that it is resulting in really regularly tin color surface. Severe orange. There we go, it is almost like painting with aquaral. It becomes easy with practice. Here we can. This is how we make lighter without losing brightness. This is very important because as you see, it is still very strong. However, let me show you what happens if I want to lighten up with ite. Let's tick this orange and now let's borrow a bit of white. You see? It is not bright. It is softer. But you compare it here. It is not even close as fy as this one is. It makes it for better again. This one is still rich on pigment, didn't lose its vibrancy. This one became much more soft. Be careful when you are working with light in our pictures. We do not want to lighten with white. Or if we do we need to do it with purpose like in the center of these lights. When the light is the most intense, there we can use the white, but not in the around as because those need to be very saturate. Now, this one is very beautiful, and it works for the picture really really. Because it already goes direction purple and a purple works really well with blue, so we can either make it more purple, to achieve contrast next to each other or more purple to achieve other shades, depth, or let it shine. Or we can put it next to orange and yellows and achieve more contrast with it like this. Wh colors, it very much depends, which colors will you put next to each other. This is how you create contrast, but this may be a topic of another video because here, we do not necessarily need color theory for our painting. This purple will serve for us in order to achieve and to complement these beautiful blues and the sky. You see that the Prussian blue it works really well. It will work very well also with blues here. Also here with a light blue. It just create very interesting effect for an eye without disturbing the unity too much. Here we are getting to the red, which is also very strong. This one I used for the underpainting, as I will show you very soon, and I used it, very sporadically in the painting. Most of the lights are actually done with orange. You can also mix the bit together to get darker orange. I would advise you to avoid the pink one as much as you can during painting because it will create contrast because this one goes already cold direction, and these are all warmer colors. They will be a little bit fighting, and we want to use it to our advantage, not just randomly. This one, when we use it, mostly next to those to create a contrast to make something stand out. Otherwise mix only these if it makes sense. An last one green. In the picture, there is nothing green, but little bit of green in yellow reflections usually provides also really interesting effect and also depth. We can a little bit of yellow and mix it with the green. You can see, just creates a scale because this green is already very much yellow direction like this. You can see, I'm really still keeping it very thin. I'm not making any thick layers here. We will have to save them for the later if we will use them because the technique we are using here is glazing and glazing builds on use of very, very thin layers. As you can see, same as I showed you with orange, if we use white for lightening, we use the chroma. Here for lightening of this green. We got a We got the green, which is a little bit more blunt and the same with yellow. I would advise you to play around with these things. I forgot to introduce you also to my last color, which is pale roles bruh. Blush. It's not necessary for this painting. You can do pretty much without it. It's just nice to have for lightening because it fulfills a bit similar role like light blue in the top. It is lightening the colors while preserving there. There vibrancs. Let me show you how it looks. S on its own, it looks a bit too industrial. But then when we mix it with any other color. For example, here with yellow, it creates a very nice shade of yellow, which we can then use if we like it to just make the painting more interesting at certain places. As you can see, there's a lot of space to play around. A lot of options. What else this pink, I can as well show you since it is working as complimentary to green. Creates contracts next to green. Also it can work very nice next to blue. Little bit like this pink. They can also blend together, and then they can create also a nice effect and provide depth for the night sky. These are the basics. Don't worry if it doesn't work out as you would wish to. Just try to play around with mixing the colors as much as you enjoy it. The only thing which you will re really need while painting this painting is to plan how to put the color as thin as possible. How to paint it without bring the whole block of the paint on the canvas and then not having losing the transparency of the piece. Otherwise, if this is too much, if this is frustrating, this mixing, you can as well just use colors from the tube. I think you will still achieve very nice result. You don't need to worry about that. One thing, if you want to do dark, black is usually the last option. Black is very strong, instead, what I have been using is here, a Prussian blue, but this time a little bit thicker, not as thin together with this red. This one. You put them together. And you have really nice dark shade, which will also be in harmony with the rest of colors, is richer and more interesting than if we would use a normal black. This is a trick to remember. To sum it up, things to take away from this use blacks and whites as little as possible. Instead of the black, e Prussian blue with red. I can imagine it does not even need to be exactly this red. It can be I think It doesn't need to be deep red, it can be red. It will give you similar result. Max prussian be and deep red in order to replace black. Uses titanium white, but be very careful with its opacity because let me also show you what happens if you take too much. To see is completely takes over. It covers the colors. The same since we will be working in layers. We want the colors underneath to stay transparent. If I take too much color and use it like this. Then I take another one and use it like this. Then we get into a situation when these colors mix, we have a shade which we didn't wish for, and we have a hell of color which we don't know what to do. This is the reason why I keep repeating, keep it as done as possible. Okay. These are basically the most important texts from this chapter. I hope I was understandable. Please give me feedback if you have any questions. And yeah. Let's move on to the underpainting. Before we actually move to the underpainting, I have prepared for you one last exercise. For that, take a small canvas canvas board or paper or piece of paper and try to make as many shades of colors as you see on in the screen. I've prepared this image for you, so all different shades of the colors are clearly visible. Try to pay attention to the consistency of the color while painting and avoid using thick layers. Don't stress too much about being perfect. Conc on exploring how do different pigments behave if you mix them together. Once you have tried ad, please feel free to proceed to the next chapter. See you there. 5. The Underpainting: Before we start with an actual underpainting, I would like to clarify for you why you are looking at our reference photo in red. You see, I like to do almost all my underpainting in red color. Firstly, it gives painting more depth. Our eyes are sensitive to the red light because it has longer wave length. This makes red hues naturally stand out. Apart from that, underpainting brings piece together and it provides it with unifying color harmony. Second reason is to lay out values for the future painting. Remember when I said that values are one of the most crucial aspects of the image. With proper attention to the underpainting, we will set them right straight at the beginning, and we'll have less work in the future. Hey, everyone. Welcome to my studio number one and I will show you how to paint an underpainting. This is a garage. I'm going coming to paint here is a garage, which I have together with my partner. It is mostly because for an underpainting, I like to use the spirit, which is poisonous, which makes poisonous fumes, and I do not want to have this at my home because the other Ather studio I have the little corner is in our apartment. And it is obviously not very healthy to breathe the dinner in your flood. So it is really cold. There is a snow outside, and it's freezing, and there is no heater around here. So we will have to be quick. So let me show you how here. We are having new empty cvs. So this cvas needs to be prepared, and then we will make an underpainting on it. Let me show you how this one prepared the cavas. A very old friend came by today cause he was telling every for one time of the love that he found and Marie's name of his Lady plain He talked and talked. And I heard him say that she had the longest blackest hair, the prettiest crees and Marie's name. His lady is splain. Though I smiled, the tears inside the word burning. I wished him luck and then he said a goodbye. That he was gone, but still his words kept him turning. What else was there for me to do with cry? Would you believe that yesterday, this girl was in my arms and swore to me. She'd be min and Mies the no his lady is splain. Oh I smiled, the tears and sigh of word of burning. I wished him a look and then he said in a good bye. He was gone, but still his words kept turning. What else there for me to do and cry. What do you relieve? Laddie yesterday. This girl was in my sworn to me. She'd be my turn and Marie's name. Probably spin. Yeah Marie's name. Probably spin. Oh Marie's name. So as you can see, I am wiping now of the colors where the lights will be. This goes a little bit better if you dip your cloth in the or less mineral spirit or the linseed oil, whatever you are painting with. When the cloth is a little bit wet, you can wipe the color with it better. You can also see I'm literally just putting the covers in and not really worry about the color dropping or about the details. The reason is that what I really want here to see is in the first place a structure. I actually do want color to drop. I create all kinds of interesting structures, which will be a little bit visible then through the future layers of paint and will make the picture much more interesting to look at. I'm using white brush and a piece of toilet paper to write off the color. Occasionally, I take original wrap of the convase, and I crump it in my hand and also use it for scraping and imprinting the color on of the canvas because that also gives us a really nice structure. I'm not really worrying about the details at this point. I said, the most important is to get in the values, the darks and lights, and that correctly, as correctly as possible. So the darkest darks and the lightest lights should be there. The second aim which we have is to have the red paint on place because that will make our colors so much better in future layers. The third aim is to get as strong of a pattern as possible to make picture interesting. You can see I'm now stamping with a piece of toilet paper into the paint to get a bit of color off. I am then blurring it with a brush and it's stamping again. That gives us really interesting effect. Don't really worry about painting each individual branch. There will be enough time for that in future. Here, we need to get the values and the structure. Now it's slow, seems to be coming together. Now I'm putting in more contrast next to the reflections of the light in the water and a little bit more brying it with a wide brush. It seems to be done. Now we need to let it rest, have it perfectly dried. I cannot stress this enough. The reason why why I am using the odorless mineral spirit instead of oil because it dries quicker. So for this picture, it will probably take only one week to be completely dry. If you have used oil, I would advise you to leave it standing now for at least one month because underpainting is the base for all what comes next. And if it is not properly dried, you will not get the result which we want. So I will say it again. Leave it now be, let it stand until it is perfectly dry, and then we will move to the next step. Do. 6. The Process 1: A. All right, guys. Let's get to the actual painting. As you can see, my underpainting is fully dried. I have it prepared in the studio, and I have started to cover the sky with a light blue and a little bit darker shade of blue and immediately wiping it off with a cloth. This technique is called glazing. It means literally that you will put the color no matter what consistency on the canvas, and then wipe it off again. And what will be left will be only very thin layer of the paint, which will then cover the previous layer with a certain level of transparency. And provide it with a very interesting effect. You can see, I've expanded already over the tree and now I'm working on the horizon. Don't worry, really. There is pretty much nothing which can move wrong as long as the underpainting is perfectly dry. You can literally put on the paint, spread it a bit and then wipe it off again. If you can try to make sure that you use all sort of shades of blue because we don't want all picture to look the same. So to make something interesting to look at. Here you can see I also don't worry about covering the light spot. I just paint over them and then wipe it off again. Just a reminder, as I said already during underpainting. When you want to wipe off color completely, it's good to tip the cloth or toilet paper, whatever you are using tissue into the oil, and then wipe off the paint from the canvas. Here, as you can see, I am using red or brownish red. I believe I have darkened it a little bit with blue. The trick which I have showed you, and I am covering the grass. It is one of the darkest spots on the picture, so we don't need to worry about using too much paint. But I also don't want it to be the only attention grabbing spot. Remember the exercise which we did on focus. This is why I am not going full on with darkness because I want to see how it will look in the unity with the rest of the picture. Here I am trying to give it some interesting effect, the blue blending into the red. And then wipe it off, so we can still see this nice, interesting pattern which we achieved from underpainting dripping down. If you want to blend, the best way how to do it is to use oil. And yeah. If you don't like anything, just wipe it off. So, as you can see, I'm using a little bit more liquid color and with that co with a blue area into the red area and create transition. Here in the co too, Yeah. Here, I'm just making them blend a bit better while trying to preserve this nice button which we have. And as you can see, it is such a simple trick, and it already looks pretty interesting. It is not something You would immediately know how the person achieved well paint this effect. This is why I really like to use this technique with underpainting and with a pattern underneath because together with upper layers, the effect can be quite nice. Here I'm starting to adjust the values. Remember when we talked about values. If you still have the exercises which we did, in chapters before, have them at hand, they are very useful to sometimes look at and just to clarify which places need to be dark, which places need to be light? Where does the contrast lay where does the focused co? Here you can see This area above the lights needs to be dark. So the lights can stand out because if you remember, we decided that this row of lights needs to be one of the first objects. Our eye will lend on while observing the picture. So this is why I have made it a little bit darker behind them as one of the first places also to balance out this big piece of land in a foreground. While working, don't worry to take also a few steps back from time to time. It helps to see the picture as the whole and not only the area you are just working on. Now I'm starting to put the yellow mixed with white into the left part of the water. As I said, be careful if you mix yellow and white. The titanium white is very strong, so make sure to tin the color down very well and if necessarily wipe it off with a tissue. What we are basically doing is just toning the canvas. Do not worry about any details yet because we will get to them at the end. And if we are successful, details will crystallize moly on their own by themselves. I am now just making more contrast, but immediately again wiping it off because this is only first layer and it serves to just roughly lay down the basic shades and don't forget, values are very important. Let's try to have the values right. Darks and lights. This is very important. This is why we also had the underpainting to make sure that we know where the darkest spots and lightest should be. So there to the left, if you remember, there was supposed to be the second most contrasting spot in the painting. We do not need to worry and we can go full on with a contrast. I'm still using dark blue, Prussian blue mixed with a little bit of red and only sometimes little hint of dark gray. But it is by no means full on black. This we can say for the later stages when we will be adding more contrast and more detail. Now I'm working more on the reflection in the water. Now the middle part. The middle part also needs to have some contrast because there is this one prominent reflection of that one light in the middle of the water, and for it to stand out, there needs to be some shadow present close by. So this is what I'm doing right now, and at the same time, just blighting it and wiping it off, tinning it down, so we do not lose that nice pattern. We have aid while doing the underpainting. As you can also see, I am not very much worrying about the boat, which is in the foreground, but for us not really because we have decided already before starting to paint that the focus will not be on the boat itself, but it will be on the lights and the reflections on the water. Because of that, we do not need to do the boat into the biggest detail. We can just try to make it about the same value and tone as its environment around and make sure that only the lightest parts are being highlighted there, but we do not want that the bolt catches all the attention immediately. It looks I'm using very light color, but actually it's more middle tone. It is not very light. This part which I'm working right now, this will be the bright part. There the contrast will be. There the light color belongs. Now the lights. This will be literally just to slightly tone them. So that we need to be very careful to wipe the color again off because we do not want to have a thick layer of color on these spots. Because these lights will be center of focus. Therefore, we will need to work on them later and into bigger detail. This is just the first layer, setting the basic tone, the first layer, which should be very, very thin, and the rest will come later. So Be careful just to put it very very in. Once you have enough pigment there, wipe it off. Yeah, when there is light, it will obviously also reflect on its environment, so we can expand it a bit to the boat, to the water, to the horizon, even to the sky and to the buildings behind. You can see me working my way through these lights. Exactly. Now, I'm starting to put again yellow mixed with white and orange to the right part because there is a little bit more going on and not only the street lights, but also some port, traffic lights. I think there is one Christmas tree that will all come by the end. A Now we can see I am making the centers of these lights fed with the list oil and I am immediately wiping all the pigment off. With that, I am achieving the white spot in the middle. So this orange pigment, which we have applied, will not keep the space from the brighter color which we will want to put there later. The same happens with the other light also to the left. Now we can see I'm putting a little bit of the t to the up part. Again, I am trying to spread it, to make it blurry. If it is too strong, it needs to be wiped off. Exactly. As you can see, if you look at the picture as the whole, it already starts to show some progress. If you compare it with the under which we had in the beginning, it starts to look a bit closer to our reference, and we didn't even need to do that. We basically just put on the color and wiped it off again. So With a little steps, we are approaching slowly to the desired results. As said, do not worry about any details. We just want to bring in the general tone. Everything is correctable later. Everything can be changed in next steps as well. A bit of tone in contrast to the reflections because the reflections together with the role of lies should be the center of attention. We want there the brightest color, the most contrasting colors and also a bit more detail. Yeah. Now you can basically have fun with this face forever. You can always try to add some interesting colors here and there. You can explore the reference and find the different shades. You can look at your previous co study, which we did in the other picture and try to introduce other shades which you have from before. Because the more that is happening, the more interesting and the better will the picture look at the end. This is basically just the second step of the underpainting, so we don't need to worry about being precise, having perfect detail, having a perfect perspective that all will come later. Here and there, a bit of water, a bit of plume. Just make sure to keep the values in mind, darks and lights and the focus. More we do not need. Okay. And with that, we are slowly approaching the end of the first step. So as you can see, there is still a button preserved, which is great because we wanted it. The color was thinned down exactly as I told you it needs to be, and we already have achieved some really nice effects, which will be looking good in the final picture. So this phase went well. Now you need to let the picture dry again as much as possible, but doesn't need to be perfectly dry like the underpainting. 7. The Process 2: Hello, and welcome to the next step of our creative process. We have now the basic colors and tones laid down, and slowly we can move towards the details. So what you can see me doing is to start using a little bit thicker consistency of the color to increase the opacity and to occupy myself with some most prominent details to the left. I'm starting with one of the main areas where the most of the focus will be concentrated because It's good to have these areas covered as first to see how the picture work together as a unity. And then we can still see how much more detail does it need in these areas which are not that much visible. So you can see I am doing that these finos, a bit deeper contrast, bit dark, dark, already the first first branches of that little bush to the front, and also first branches of the tree. Now you can see me highlighting the back of the ship, going along the horizon line, adding contrast. Lights. Now, you can see me using pure white color, pure titanium white. You know that I have warned you that this titanium white is a monster. If you do not tame it, it will be perfectly white and take over the rest. This is exactly what we need at some places of this picture. For example, these lights, their can be p white. We want that for the contrast. And you can also see that it works pretty well. The reflections, I have mixed a little bit more consistent titanium white with yellow and made the exact shiny shiny middles. Remember what I told you about the saturating colors when mixing them with white. In the middle of the light source, this is not a problem. The middle of the light source can be pure white or something close to white. But around The continuous ring of light, we need to have saturated. So this is why I am not worrying now about using these reflections and mixing them with white because I will add the saturated colors afterwards. Now I'm making some lighter shades of blue. Above the horizon because this is where we will be able to see through the branches of the tree, and we want some light sky to be visible and to have some contrast. I have already also highlighted the most prominent branches of that tree. Because if you remember, as we decided when we were making the study about focus, we want these branches to point to observers eye back to the horizon. So we want to hide a little bit that boat in the middle with them and to guide the eye back to the light source. So this is what I'm trying to achieve here. So if any place is a little bit too strong, we can always try to blurry it, blend it with a background, or add a little bit more oil and wipe it off. This always works. Here I'm adding some contrasts, this time with per home color. This was red, mixed with a little bit of blue, and immediately I'm proceeding with adding contrast behind that little bush, which stands in the front, little bit of yellowish reflections, and now a little bit more detail to the back. Remember, this will be the very busy corner. Lot of things are happening there. We actually do want a lot of detail in this place. This is the place where we will spend a lot of time. So now you can see me also laying the basics for the tree. I would advise you when proceeding to that tree. Do not move immediately to painting the branches. Try to first lay the values. Meaning, try to close your eyes half, so you can see the reference photo blurry. And as we did with a picture as the whole, try to do the same when doing the tree area and horizon area. Try to determine which places are the lightest, which are the darkest, and just try to lay them down in a blurry way. Do not start with detail just yet on that tree and on horizon. Because the ting could very easily take over the focus and lead the observer away from the light source, and this is what we don't want. So less is better in this case. Now you see me adding stronger and stronger contrast to that horizon line. Now I have mixed russian blue with red. I know it looks black. It is not. It is due to the colors which lay next to it, so yellow and red, it looks so strong. We do want attention there so we can do strong contrast at these places. And continuing with the horizon line. The reason is as mentioned before, that we want to have the most focused places laid down as the first ones, so we can see how much detail we need to the rest. So this was also the purpose of that very first exercise when we used the pencil and drew the areas which attracted attention the mot. So we do not get lost in the detail unnecessarily. This is very common mistake, and it's very difficult, oftentimes not to get lost in the detail. So now we continue working on that boat. Perspective is a little bit off, but we do not need to worry because it is a night scene and from that boat will not be visible much. So if your boat is not perfectly aligned with perspective, just try to do it roughly correct, and then we'll hope that really the focus will stay with the light source. And the boat will be hidden into the shadow. A lot can be forgiven. A lot of mistakes when you are painting the nocturnal s because our eye can be confused by the darkness and oftentimes it happens that we already in the reality do not see the things correctly. I said, don't worry about perfection. The most important is firstly having fun. Secondly, having values correct. Now I'm playing a little bit more with the detail. And yeah. This was the first detailed venture we have done. Feel free to rewatch. If you have any feedback, let me know and see you in the next video. 8. The Process 3: Hello, everyone. Things are slowly starting to look promising. In this video, we are having a big challenge ahead of us. As you see, I'm painting the branches of the tree. Now, my tip would be choose, let's say, for the start, four most prominent ones and start with those. Yeah, you can see I am now doing basically three bursts of branches. But be very careful about that because as I said before, we do not want to mess up our focus. So very important at first is to check where the branches are being dense. And where from the tree, we want the focus to be. So let's see. I'm concentrating the focus above the boat next to that very light spot because there, it will serve our purpose and it will be covering the boat itself, and then the same time leading the observer to look towards the light source. We do not want the observer to come and spend all the time watching the tree. That's not our e. This is not why we are spending so much time painting the lights and water reflections. So in order for it to be not as strong, make sure to not use very dark color. What I'm using is brown. It's a middle brown, even though it looks darker than it is. It is a mixed with a dark gray and red mixed with the blue. But both of these shades are not that dark. Now, you can see I'm using more blue side that looks darker, and I'm using it only close to the horizon line and to the roofs of the houses because this is where the values are darker. The rest of the branches can pretty much be painted with middle brown. In order not to disturb too much. If anything is way too strong, you can always make it blurry. You can always blend it or wipe it off. Don't worry about that. Another tip would be, try to use from time to time slightly different tone, different color for sketching your branches, not all of them look the same. That would be boring. Now we can see I have done quite a bit of detail there. But mostly above that boat to create the triangle we talked about in the first exercise. Most of them are pointing towards the boat and towards the light. Now I'm working a little bit on the water reflections. I said, it is quite important that from time to time, you stand up and make a few steps to the back and see how the picture looks from the distance because that really helps to clarify the priorities where the focus so be strong, what should be strong. Now you see me working on a background, which makes the houses stand out, that all again, draws the attention closer to this line of light where we want it to be. It's pretty good. We're drawing attention away from that tree. Now turning a little bit more the sky. Exactly. Working the way through the sky. Obviously, the blue will be lighter. The closer it is to the light source. If you have some nice patterns underneath from your underpainting, you can tin the color down a bit more, so these patterns still shine through. That will be very nice if you can achieve that. It's always really nice success, and to balance it out. I'm now bringing the similar shade of blue also to the water. But again, I'm tinning the color. We do not lose that nice pattern. We wanted to stay. Somewhere stronger, somewhere less st, but it's good when it is a little bit visible. We see when I put this layer of blue close to the lights reflection. It creates really nice contrast. That's because some shades of blue are complimentary to some shades of yellow and orange, and it makes really nice contrast where we want it to be. We can see the lights are starting to nicely stand out. Now I'm adding a little bit more saturated color around the white center of these lights. Exactly as I told you. And now you see me taking the very saturated, white and yellow and putting in the details. Now, at this point, do not tint the color down. Here you want the real consistency, so it covers because with these little details, we want them really to shine. We want those details to stand out. And also to draw attention where we want the attention to be. So whatever is there, these little light dots, little bars, poles of the lights that all can be now drawn with as much attention as we can give it, and with a really saturated layer of color. And now you see I'm doing something very similar to the light reflection in the water. Now is the time to not tin the color down. Take it that detan white, mix it with a bit of yellow, but make sure that your brushes perfectly clean. We do not want any blues or greens or the arcs in there. We want really clear, shiny, bright yellow white color to make it stand out and to make this reflection really really strong. Now, around these reflections, I like to paint a bit of orange, bright orange, or bright purple border. That gives it also very interesting effect. You don't need to do it. You can also just do the red fields around or whatever works for you. There, you can be very creative. But I would advise to use very saturated colors next to this, very bright yellow and white. Here, you do not need to be afraid to use the colors directly from the tube. The orange, the red, we are happy to have as much saturation as possible. Here you can see me a little bit doing of a water butter because water shapes some net like ornaments, which can be also a little stimulated and here the middle reflection. The middle reflection is having slightly different color than the ones to the right. If you look at it, you can see that there is much less yellow, much less orange, and it all goes more purple pink direction. What I have done, I have done very white center and then purple edges around it and pink. Now, these slides which you see me doing, they are already going more green direction. There, one can even sneak a little dots of green now and there, especially to the edge of the light to make it to distinguish them a little bit from the lights to the right. Here, I'm also playing a bit more with the branches of the tree to the front. There we do not need to worry about overdoing it because this tree is helping us to bring attention to this place. We can make the branches actually pretty contrasting. No, I'm just putting one last touch to that light in the middle. We want it to be very bright, very contrasting, little bit now and there. A little bit more detail to the left, a little bit more saturation to the right, depending on the situation. Now a bit more attention also to that light in the middle above the board. And of course, now final touch to the light contrasting details under those slides. So all that little detail. I hope it was understandable. And I see you in the next video. 9. The Process 4: And we have made it to the final painting video. Within this video, we will be busy. Just adding the details, really. You can see I have add a little bit of lighter pink to the boat. Just to add a little bit more harmony because in my opinion, the boat was too blue. And now you can see me working on those trees on those branches. I am making sure that they are not too sharp, making them blurry, since over there in the corner is a place with a higher contrast, I have added some lights to that to also balance out the picture. Otherwise, all the light and all the contrast is concentrated to one line, and we also don't want that. We do not want the t to be too strong, but we still want it to be able to balance out the rest of what is going on in the picture. The houses in the front still need some details like windows and roofs. Here I am a little bit adjusting also the tone, the color of the houses, and the slide. There is a corner which reflects the light, so it needs to be lighter. Of course, the branches are breaking the shape of the houses and hiding them also a bit. Now at this point. You do not have to add too many details. This last video is more or less voluntary. If you feel like you would like to, you are having fun, it's you are too worried that you would destroy that it wouldn't work out, it's perfectly fine to stop and cold picture. Now, around the horizontal line and around the roof line. I said there is good idea to add more detail. I'm putting little blobs of color to add contrast and to simulate the play of light in there. With adding these lighter spots which shine through the branches, be careful not to use too saturated blue that would immediately overweight the rest of the picture. Better more. And now the branches again. These roofs are a bit tricky. So I have used the free to use 12 to have them straight. As we have found out when we were making a study of the darks and lights, the roof area of these houses in a background is one of the darker spots. So we want to also paint it like this. And you see Mo adding some windows and some details overall to the scene. A bit more details at the end of the tree because this is the point where the branches are pointing back in the triangular shape, so that detail is. We want attention to go there. Here we can see details of that boat. As you can see that boat is not standing out because of itself, it's more or less the same sheet of purple, blue, and the gray as the water. And it stands out because of the light behind it. You can see me working through the numerous details to the left. 00. There is literally eternity of options. How much detail do we want to have because in those areas of pocus focus, there is never enough. You can go on forever. This is where we want detail to be. I'm making it a little bush and forefront stand out. In contrast with the lights in the background. Adding some more saturated colors to that area. And the reflection here and there. Here you can see I'm using some middle tones. This is a purple gray. It looks much lighter than it actually is because it is on the darker gravel. Don't get yourself be confused. In these neutral areas, it's always better to use a little bit darker color than to light because two light of a color would mean too much deviation of our value structure here. Now, I'm again using a saturated titanium valve to put in some more lights from that area. And the only light reflections on the front of the boat, which makes it a little bit more plastic. But as we, you do not have to put it there. It's not necessary. The boat is fine also as it was before. No a little bit more detail, no a little bit more detailed edges of the lights and saturated colors, just to give some food for an eye, and slowly, Slowly we are approaching the final. You can see that to the right there is still some work to be done, and on the reflections. I'm once again going over the reflections, making sure that the values are right, that the values are fitting and adding some strong colors. There for the picture to have this vivid quality and drama which nit scenes have. Now, finally, the last few reflections before the houses in front are having their values a little bit incorrectly, so we had to fix that. They were not supposed to be all that dark because they also catch the light from the street lights. Only to complete was the darkest and the rest for some different shades of darkness, but not completely dark. I was still hay with the tree slowly getting there. Have you see me making in the very last details of that scene with a color which is not down. As I said, this color we want to shine and take over some saturated shades of red. It is all very much detail work. There's not much to say about it. As said On the places where the focus is concentrated, you can add as much detail as you want. You can go on forever. And then the edge of the painting to bring the picture nicely together. On last correction for the values because the right side of the horizon should have been darker. Also a bit more detail and value correction. So not all the reflections look the same. And here we are. The picture can be proclaimed ready. I can imagine this last part could have been a bit overwhelming for you. Please make sure to go with your own tempo at only as much of detail as you are comfortable with, feel free to rewatch if you need to. Give me feedback. Here you can see that the pattern from our underpainting gave us really really nice effect, and saved us a lot of work on many areas. If you look really close, you also see that the picture is not very precise as such. That's the point of it, that's what we want. Pat as such happens partly also by itself. We cannot control the full painting process, and that's the beauty of it because we can just go with the flow and enjoy it. I hope you had as much fun as I did and see you in the last video. 10. Conclusion: C. All right. And this is the end. We have finished our project. Thank you for watching. Thank you for sticking with me and with the process. Please feel free to upload your result for me through submitting the project I would love to see. Do not hesitate to reach out with any feedback, any comments, whatever you may wish. I am also happy to provide feedback on your pictures or any of the exercises we have done. I only hope you had fun. And if you have liked it, I will be grateful if you follow and maybe we see each other in next widow. Have a gs