A Ship in the Storm - Exploring Light and brushwork with a Fan Brush

So on this demo we're going to have a go at this Turner inspired seascape and again practicing with my fan brush and maybe a bit of palette knife and see what interesting brush marks we can make. So this is 12 inches by 16 inches and we've got a Turner inspired seascape so there's my horizon roughly, so probably moon there, thereabouts, and colours. These are the leftover paints from my Seago study. So I've got titanium white, a bit of Naples yellow, primary yellow, a burnt sienna or red ochre you could use and an ochre and blue and magenta but to be fair, any colour. Any colours you want. Just think about it as are we going warmer, cooler and so on. So a little bit warmer there, a little bit warmer there and let's see what's blue. Blue with a bit of white, a bit of yellow. That's too bad. So there's a break in the clouds here and that's at sunlight. At sunlight the moon is lighting up the sky through there. This is a toned canvas. This is a canvas panel that once upon a time had another painting underneath and I decided I didn't want it so I painted over it. Darker blue up there and I'm using this fan brush. I think just practice with a fan brush to get a feel for the line of marks it leaves. A bit of magenta. Mix, a bit lighter. Mix in on the canvas. Darker and we're going to need some darks in there to make that seem bright. There's a lot of sky in this and a lot of water under just a couple of boats. So an ideal time to practice with brushwork and blending colours but without creating mud. If we stick to these colours, the blues and mauves, all that magenta and blue, we shouldn't end up with muddy colours. We can make that blue darker by adding a bit of that brown. Needs to still stay blue. Horizon. Obviously the sea, basically the same as what's going on above really but maybe more horizontal marks opposed to swirls and so on. Go over here a little bit. These are arrows in the sky pointing to where you want the eye to go. Ideally I could do with a slightly bigger fan brush. That's on my wish list. Some new brushes and bigger fan brushes. So hopefully you're enjoying this video. Please do hit that like and subscribe. Don't forget the notification bell so you don't miss any videos. And don't forget to check out those links in the description if you want to paint along with me perhaps on a live stream and have access to a huge library of cool demonstrations like this. Change direction. A bit more magenta. A bit lighter. Needs to be lighter here because this is where the boat's going to be. So we want that boat to be standing out against lighter value against darker value. Make sure we get that nice and light down here. Make this a little bit more interesting, that shape. That's just light breaking through there. Add the little highlights on afterwards. Don't worry about those for the moment. Might look a bit lifeless. Take that brush off. My Naples yellow. If you haven't got your Naples yellow you could just use a bit of yellow ochre and white. The sun is going to be on the moon. We'll call it the moon. There. Might be better with a softer fan brush. That was a bristle fan brush. Let's have a go with a soft haired fan brush. Lay the paint on top of what's there. Maybe better. This image was inspired by a turner. Whether it is or not I don't know. I just quite like the look of it. I thought I could have a bit of fun with a fan brush. Like this one. Have a break from the sky. Work on the sea. Move out what's going on above. In there. I'd like to get some of that orange in there on the water. My yellow. Browny red. Naples yellow. Maybe I'll use a bit of chamomile orange in a moment. Or at the very end just to put a few little bits on. I need to put that moon back in. That's going to go there. Then repeat what I did in the sky. Maybe Mark's going this way more. Horizontal. Trying to avoid getting muddy brown. Orange. Horizon. Horizontal. Decide whether we want a hard edge. That's quite nice. Sometimes it's just nice just to whack a load of paint on. See what happens. A little bit darker down here. Back to that lighter blue. Back to the darker blue. But it's kind of a little bit greeny over this side. A bit of yellow in. And we've got a lost edge there. Let's have a go with the palette knife to put this sun on. A little bit of warmth in that white. Nicely load it up. Decide where it's going to go. Don't fiddle about with that too much because it will milk up the blue. That light across there. Ripples there. I'll let those blend in. Just a little bit less of those. This sort of painting I just consider as having a bit of fun really. Don't take it too seriously. Let's have a go with the boats. A little bit less of that. A bit of brown into there. Blue. Dark. A small worn out round brush. See a triangle up in the distance. A few ships up on the horizon. Coming into harbour maybe. Pull those reflections down. This one here needs a bit more detail. Slightly darker for the other boat. Make sure there's another boat in front of that or that's just another part of that boat. My sail's a little bit on the wide side but it doesn't really matter. It's better to keep it looking fresh rather than mess about with it too much. A bit of orange visible in there. Just breaks up that blue. Rigour. Throw in a few darks. Drag that brush across there. Maybe on that ship there's a couple of lanterns visible. Maybe that is a distant town across there. Last little bit on the sky. I'd say that is purely experimental. I'm sure that's how Turner made all his paintings. Towards the end just trying stuff out. Something's worked. Blue. It's just going to be catching a bit of light on those clouds. Put it on. That worked quite well. And then scrape it off towards. Something new there. Just a few little bits of light. And I'll start messing about with it. That came out OK. And actually that palette was obviously the perfect palette for that scene as the colours are very close. But I'm sure we could have got very similar colours with the normal palettes of azarn crimson, ultramarine blue, primary yellow and white. Honestly it really doesn't matter about the colour because you've got primary colours on there. Probably very few colours you couldn't get to or couldn't get close enough. But as you say, there's not a lot of detail in this. It's more about the interesting brushwork rather than detail, which I think perhaps Turner's was also similar. Capturing atmosphere opposed to fine detail, which is why his work was so spontaneous and amazing really. But we can all aspire to be as good as that one day. It's a great opportunity to experiment on a scene like this because there's no real pressure. It's just a bit of fun. I learned a little bit about making a few marks with a palette knife. Reinforce what a great fan brush is. It really does blend the paint together quite nicely and leave these interesting marks. So there we go. Give it a go. Good luck and I'll see you on the next video. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe. And if you enjoyed this video, you'll love this one.